A/N: Hello, cryptids. Iâm Crypt, welcome to the graveyard. (AFAB/She/Her) (Pan baby)
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"Night Terrors" (M/NSFW)(Yandere!Batfamily x Reader)(F/M)(REWRITTEN)
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hiiii cutie!! may i request a batfamily x batmom!reader where theyre on a plane (i know he has his own but for storyâs sake he uses public airlines) and encounter a really mean old lady who finds discomfort with the family for some reason or other and makes it readerâs problem until bruce comes back from talking with the pilot or restroom or wtv and the old lady sees this and immediately goes hush. i just think thatd be so funny
Please Secure Your Attitude for Takeoff
Pairing: Batfamily x Batmom!AFAB!Reader
Words: 4k
Content Warning: None!
A/N: Hiiii!! Finally getting through my request inbox, yay!
Enjoy, Reader
This was going to be a shitshow.
You knew it the moment you arrived with Bruce Wayne at the public airport with seven children, two garment bags, far too many carry-ons, and the serene, devastating confidence of a man who had never once been personally humbled by boarding group numbers, overhead bin politics, or the particular little purgatory of removing shoes while an entire security line breathed down the back of his neck.
He had said it would be fine, because Bruce always said things would be fine in that low, steady voice that made disaster sound like an administrative inconvenience waiting for his signature.Â
The private jet was unavailable, which you strongly suspected meant one of the children had broken something expensive, another had attempted to hide the evidence badly, and Alfred had decided, with all the silent cruelty of a man who polished silverware like a verdict, that commercial air travel was the natural consequence.Â
So Bruce had bought first-class tickets, guided everyone through the airport with one warm hand at the small of your back, and said, âIt will be good for them.â
You had looked up at him beneath the harsh airport lights, surrounded by travelers, rolling luggage, crying toddlers, and the smell of burnt coffee. âFor them?â
âFor all of us,â Bruce had said, which was much worse.
âThat sounds like something said immediately before a tragedy.â
âItâs only a few hours.â
That was only an hour ago. Now the plane hums around you, that strange hush that only happens in the air, all of you sealed inside a narrow metal body above the clouds, breathing the same cold, recycled air. The engines drone low and steady, interrupted by the occasional soft chime overhead. Sunlight presses in through the oval windows, pale and bright, turning the leather seats glossy and catching on the plastic cups scattered across tray tables.Â
The cabin smells faintly of coffee, expensive perfume, warm electronics, and the sharp, artificial chill of pressurized air. Dick sits across the aisle, already adored by two flight attendants and a toddler with a dinosaur backpack. Dick Grayson could make polite eye contact with a vending machine and leave it feeling understood.Â
Jason has a paperback open in one hand, but he looks less like heâs reading and more like heâs daring the entire concept of literature to pick a fight. Your heart pulls a little when you catch him checking, just once, to see if you noticed the title; one of the stray, silent ways he still asks for approval, as if old habits might let him believe he is only visiting home.Â
Tim is behind you, laptop open, soul halfway gone, fighting sleep with the tragic dignity of a vigilante fighting bedtime. You remember the year you learned to make strong tea just the way he prefers, so he wouldnât fade during finals.Â
Cass has already taken the laptop before it can slide off the tray table, moving so quietly that Tim just blinks at his empty hands like a magician stole his future. She gives you a fleeting, conspiratorial smile, the kind she reserves only for family.Â
Duke wears a travel pillow and watches the cabin with the mild amusement of someone waiting for the plot to thicken. On mornings when the world feels heavy, you still call him your little sun.Â
Damian sits beside you, sketchbook open in his lap, drawing Titus in what looks like a cape and a small, deeply judgmental cowl. He leans a little into your shoulder as he draws, a closeness he pretends is absent, but you know is his version of trust.
Bruce had been seated on your other side until ten minutes after takeoff, when a flight attendant leaned down and murmured something about the captain wanting a word. His eyes had shifted in that subtle way you recognized, attention sharpening behind the mask of a polite billionaire, and he had touched your wrist before standing.
âIâll be back in a minute,â he said.
âYou said that once and came back with a child.â
Jason coughed into his fist, and Dick suddenly became very interested in the safety card.
Bruceâs mouth barely twitched. âNo more children.â
âDo you promise?â
âFor the rest of the flight.â
âRomantic,â you said, and he brushed his thumb once over the inside of your wrist before disappearing toward the front galley, broad shoulders making the aisle look unfairly narrow as he moved past the curtain.
For approximately thirty seconds, there was peace.
Then the woman in 3C cleared her throat.
It was not an ordinary throat clear. It was a declaration of war wearing pearls, the sort of sound produced by someone who had been storing disapproval in her chest since boarding and had finally decided the cabin deserved access to it. You looked up and found her turned just enough in her seat to face you without fully committing to the indignity of twisting around.
 She was elderly, elegant, and stiff-backed, with a silver bob sprayed into submission, coral lipstick, a cream cardigan buttoned over a pale blouse, and a handbag resting in her lap like a judgmental pet. Her eyes swept across Damianâs sketchbook, Jasonâs jacket, Timâs half-dead posture, Cassâs stillness, Dukeâs watchful amusement, Dickâs easy charm, and finally settled on you with the hard little satisfaction of a woman who had found the person she intended to make responsible for her discomfort.
You knew that look. You had seen versions of it in school offices, charity events, grocery stores, hospital waiting rooms, and once in a museum where Damian had been accused of âlurking with intentâ beside a Monet. It was the look people gave when they saw your family and decided love had exceeded the legal occupancy limit.
You gave her your politest smile. âCan I help you?â
âI certainly hope so,â she said.
Damianâs pencil paused against the page.
Dick leaned slightly into the aisle with that bright, well-meaning expression that made strangers believe diplomacy might survive the century. âIs something wrong, maâam?â
The woman glanced at him, seemed briefly inconvenienced by the power of his face, then recovered. âI was speaking to the mother.â
Jason turned a page without looking up. âWhich one? We rotate emotional support adults.â
âJason,â you murmured.
The womanâs lips pinched. âThat is exactly what I mean.â
You folded your hands in your lap because if you gave them nothing respectable to do, one might drift toward Damianâs wrist in warning or Jasonâs shoulder in preemptive damage control. âWhat do you mean?â
âThe noise,â she said. âThe whispering, the constant shifting, the atmosphere.â
Duke blinked. âThe atmosphere?â
âYes,â she said, as if he had personally released a weather system into first class.
The bleakest part is that no one had been loud. The Wayne children in public could be many things, but when they needed to, they went quiet. Not normal quiet. Dangerous quiet. Rooftop quiet. The kind of quiet that makes sensible people check the exits and wonder why their instincts have started ringing little silver bells.
âIâm sorry youâre uncomfortable,â you said. âWeâll be mindful.â
âMindful would have been arranging yourselves properly before boarding,â she replied, lifting her chin. âChildren should not be scattered across the cabin like loose change.â
Jasonâs eyes lifted over the top of his book.
The air changed almost imperceptibly, and a silk thread pulled tight. Dickâs smile stayed in place, but the warmth thinned at the edges. Cassâs gaze moved to the woman with calm precision. Duke straightened a little. Damian lowered his pencil, his mouth flattening into the expression he wore when deciding whether a person deserved mercy or a footnote.
âTheyâre in assigned seats,â you said.
âTheyâre practically surrounding people.â
âWe do that,â Tim mumbled, still half-asleep. âFamily tradition.â
Cass gently shut his laptop the rest of the way.
The woman stared at him. âIs he ill?â
âSleep deprived,â Duke said. âVery tragic. Very Gotham.â
âThen perhaps he shouldnât travel.â
Tim opened one eye. âI suggested cargo. Nobody listened.â
âTim,â you said softly.
The woman seized on that tiny crack of chaos with visible satisfaction. âYou see? Disrespectful. Dramatic. And that one looks as if he is about to start a fight.â
She pointed at Jason.
Jason looked down at himself, then around the cabin, as if searching for whatever violent criminal she could possibly mean. âMe?â
âYou know itâs you,â Dick said quietly.
Jason placed one hand over his heart. âIâm reading Austen.â
âThat does not comfort people the way you think it does,â Duke murmured.
The woman turned toward Damian next, apparently determined to catalog every offense by row and blood pressure. âAnd that one has been staring at me.â
Damian looked up slowly, and the temperature of the cabin seemed to drop by several degrees. âI have not. I have been drawing my dog.â
âYou looked at me twice.â
âYou were in my line of sight.â
âDamian,â you said.
His jaw tightened, but he looked back down. âApologies.â
It sounded less like an apology and more like a royal pardon delivered under protest.
The woman clearly mistook your restraint for permission. Some people did that. They saw courtesy and decided it was an unlocked door; they saw motherhood and mistook softness for a public utility. âLarge families like this always think the world should accommodate them,â she said, loudly enough now for the nearest passengers to hear, but not quite loudly enough to admit she wanted an audience.
âWe paid for our seats too,â you replied.
âYes, but you chose to bring this entire⌠assembly.â
Dickâs smile vanished.
It did not vanish dramatically. It simply left his face like a light being switched off.
âAssembly?â he repeated.
âDick,â you murmured.
âIâm just checking the vocabulary.â
The woman looked at him, perhaps sensing for half a second that she had stepped onto a floorboard with teeth beneath it, but then her attention returned to you. You were always the safer battlefield. Bruce was too imposing, Jason too visibly unpleasant when provoked, Damian too sharp, Cass too unreadable, Tim too dangerous in proximity to electronics, Duke too watchful, and Dick too charming until he was suddenly not charming at all.Â
But you looked like the mother, the soft one, the one expected to absorb the blow and turn it into an apology. And in truth, you were their stepmother. It was a title that knew how to wear armor and softness at the same time, and you had learned to hold both, whether the world recognized the difference or not.
âI understand wanting to give children opportunities,â she said, her voice sweet in the way spoiled milk might be sweet if it learned manners. âBut some children simply arenât suited for public spaces.â
Jasonâs book closed.
Not loud. Loud would have been less threatening. He closes it with one finger still marking his place, slow and deliberate, and lifts his eyes.
âCareful,â he said.
The woman recoiled, one hand fluttering to her pearls. âExcuse me?â
You looked at him. âJason.â
âWhat?â he said. âItâs good advice. Lots of sudden drops on planes.â
âWe are not doing this.â
A flight attendant named Maribel appeared in the aisle with the cautious smile of a woman who had smelled smoke before the alarm had started screaming. âIs everything alright here?â
The old woman turned to her immediately. âIâm being harassed.â
Jason made a sound like his soul had tripped over furniture.
Dick leaned forward. âNo, she isnât.â
âShe is,â Tim murmured. âBeing disagreed with.â
âNot helpful,â Duke whispered.
Maribel looked between all of you with admirable professionalism. âCan you tell me what happened?â
âI asked this woman to control her children, and they became rude and threatening.â
âThreatening?â Dick asked, and the word came out quieter than before.
âThat one told me to be careful.â She pointed at Jason again.
Jason lifted a hand. âGeneral safety reminder.â
âPlease stop helping,â you told him.
âI have never helped once in my life.â
âThatâs true,â Dick said.
âDo not defend my character right now.â
The woman turned back to you. âAre you going to allow this?â
Your smile thinned. âIâve allowed a lot less than you think.â
Her eyes narrowed.
âIâm sorry if you feel disturbed,â you said, and though your voice stayed calm, you could feel your patience fraying beneath it, thread by thread. âBut my children have done nothing to you.â
The words changed the cabin.
My children.
They were simple words, but they settled over the rows with a weight that made several of the kids go quiet in a different way. Dickâs expression softened for half a second, unguarded and young despite everything he had survived. Jason looked away, jaw working once as if the sentence had struck somewhere too private to acknowledge. Tim stared at his closed laptop. Cassâs gaze warmed with a softness that was nearly invisible unless you knew how to read her. Dukeâs smile tucked itself away into something careful and touched. Damianâs pencil hovered above the page, unmoving.
The woman missed all of it, naturally.
âTheyâre not children,â she said. âHalf of them are grown men.â
âThen stop tattling on them like they stole your crayons,â Jason muttered.
âJason Peter Todd,â you said.
He winced. âThat was unnecessary.â
The woman lifted her chin. âIn my day, young people respected their elders.â
âIn your day, planes had smoking sections,â Tim said, then looked immediately betrayed by his own mouth.
Duke covered his face with one hand.
Cass patted Timâs arm.
The woman gasped. âAre you going to allow that?â
Tim looked at you with the doomed expression of a man who had wandered barefoot into a courtroom. âI may have over-participated.â
âYou think?â
âStatistically, yes.â
The woman leaned back, offended dignity gathering around her like a shawl. âI donât know what kind of household you run, but clearly these children have been given too much freedom.â
Your anger always arrives quietly. It isnât fire, an explosion, or something that cracks through a room and demands attention. It gathers like weather over dark water, slow and heavy, giving people too many chances to mistake the horizon for peace.
âYou can complain about the seats,â you said, voice low enough that the nearby rows had to fall silent to catch it. âYou can complain about whispering, or atmosphere, or whatever else youâve decided is unbearable about sitting near my family. But you will not talk about my children like they are burdens someone dragged onto this plane.â
The womanâs face stiffened. âI never said burdens.â
âYou implied it.â
âI only meant,â she said, wearing a small, ugly smile now, âthat it is generous of you to take on so many complicated young people. Though generosity does have limits.â
For a moment, no one moved.
The engines hummed beneath the floor. Sunlight flashed on the womanâs pearls. Damian went rigid beside you, and you felt the barely contained fury in him like a blade heating under cloth. Jasonâs stare flattened into something cold. Dickâs hand tightened around the armrest. Tim was fully awake now, which was rarely a good sign. Cass became too still. Dukeâs expression lost every trace of humor.
You reached over without looking and touched two fingers to Damianâs wrist.
âNo,â you said softly. âIt does not.â
Before the woman could answer, the cabin shifted.
You saw him first.
Bruce came through the curtain at the front of the plane with his dark hair slightly mussed, his suit jacket folded over one arm, his white shirt fitted across his shoulders in a way that made the aisle seem narrower by personal insult. He thanked the flight attendant near the galley, then walked back toward you with that quiet, controlled presence that made the world appear to straighten itself as he passed. No music swelled, no cape unfurled, no dramatic shadow fell across the cabin, though Jason would have paid actual money for all three. Bruce simply returned.
The woman turned because everyone else did.
Then she saw him.
And immediately went silent.
Not quiet. Silent.
It was the kind of silence that happened when someone realized the thunderstorm had a name, a jawline known to every gossip magazine in Gotham, and a very expensive watch.
Bruce stopped beside your row. His eyes moved over you first, always you first, and then over the children with a swift, practiced precision that missed nothing: Jasonâs closed book, Damianâs clenched hands, Dickâs missing smile, Timâs awake stare, Cassâs stillness, Dukeâs sharpened expression, Maribel standing in the aisle with the fragile composure of a woman praying no one committed a felony at cruising altitude. Finally, he looked at the woman.
âIs there a problem?â he asked.
His voice was polite, even, and dangerous as a locked door.
The woman swallowed. âMr. Wayne.â
Jason leaned back in his seat, delighted in the way only Jason could be when consequences arrived wearing cufflinks. âYou were asking where our father was, right?â
âJason,â Dick whispered.
âNo, Iâm helping.â
Bruce did not look away from the woman. âWere you?â
Her mouth opened, then closed. âThere was a small misunderstanding.â
âA small misunderstanding,â Bruce repeated.
He glanced at you. You lifted one shoulder in a tiny motion that told him both nothing and everything. You could handle it. You had handled it. But Bruce looked at the children again, and something in his expression cooled.
âMy wife,â he said, âis usually the most patient person in any room.â
The woman tried to smile. âYes, wellâŚâ
âSo if she became impatient,â Bruce continued, âI assume there was a reason.â
The smile died.
Maribel looked down, clearly fighting for her life somewhere behind her professional expression.
The woman clutched her handbag. âI didnât realize this was your family.â
Bruceâs gaze sharpened. âThat should not have mattered.â
Jason looked as if Christmas had arrived early and brought legal counsel.
Damian looked like justice had descended in human form and found the seating satisfactory.
The woman stared at her lap. âOf course.â
Bruce turned slightly to Maribel. âHas my family caused any disruption?â
âNo, Mr. Wayne,â Maribel said. âTheyâve been respectful.â
Bruce looked back at the woman. âThen I trust there wonât be further issues.â
It sounded like trust.
It was not trust.
âNo,â the woman said stiffly. âThere wonât be.â
âThank you.â
Bruce sat down beside you and took your hand as if he had not just folded the entire argument into a neat little coffin and slid it beneath the seat in front of him.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then Jason whispered, âDad voice still works.â
Dick exhaled a laugh, shaky with relief. âThat wasnât even full dad voice.â
Tim leaned back in his seat. âFull dad voice requires a first and middle name.â
Damian sniffed. âFather did not need volume. His disappointment was sufficient.â
Duke nodded solemnly. âArtisanal disappointment.â
Cass signed something with one hand that you couldnât see fully from your seat.
Dick choked.
âWhat did she say?â you asked.
Dick grinned. âShe said Bruce has resting principal face.â
Bruce looked at Cass.
Cass looked back, serene and merciless.
His mouth twitched. âNot inaccurate.â
You finally let out a breath, only then noticing how much tension had settled in your shoulders, tucked there like a smuggled knife. Bruceâs thumb moves slowly over your knuckles, hidden beneath the armrest where only you can feel it.
âWhat happened?â he asked quietly.
âShe had opinions,â you said.
âAbout?â
âOur atmosphere.â
Bruce glanced around the cabin. âOur atmosphere.â
âYes. Apparently we travel with a weather system.â
Jason muttered, âAccurate.â
You lowered your voice. âShe said generosity has limits.â
Bruceâs hand stilled.
Damian looked up, his chin lifting with sharp, wounded dignity. âShe implied we were burdens.â
âDamian,â you said softly.
âIt is relevant.â
Bruce went very quiet.
Then he looked at them one by one. Dick, Jason, Tim, Cass, Duke, Damian. His expression did not transform dramatically, because Bruceâs face had always been a locked house with only a few windows lit, but something deeper moved beneath it, something heavy and certain and fiercely held.
âNone of you are burdens,â he said.
The sentence landed gently, and somehow that made it heavier.
Tim looked down. Cassâs eyes warmed. Duke swallowed. Jasonâs jaw tightened as he stared hard at his book. Damian glared at his sketchbook with ferocious concentration. Dick smiled faintly, the kind of smile that looked like it had been stitched out of old hurt and gratitude.
Bruceâs voice stayed low. âNot to me. Not to your mother. Not ever.â
Your throat tightened before you could stop it, because even when a truth was known, there were moments when hearing it aloud made it real in a new place.
The woman in 3C sat so still she seemed to be trying to become upholstery.
Maribel returned with drinks a moment later, giving you a quiet look of solidarity as she stopped beside your row. âMore water, Mrs. Wayne?â
âYes, please.â
âAnything else?â
âCoffee,â Tim said at once.
âNo,â you, Bruce, Dick, Jason, Duke, and Damian said together.
Cass accepted the coffee Maribel had already poured and placed it on her own tray table, far from Timâs reach.
Tim stared at her with hollow despair. âCruelty from the quietest corner.â
Jason reopened his book. âThis family hates innovation.â
âThis family hates whatever happens when you drink airplane coffee after thirty hours awake,â Duke said.
âThirty-one,â Tim corrected.
Bruce looked at him.
Tim closed his eyes. âAllegedly.â
Slowly, your family settles back into its shape. Dick makes Maribel laugh with something kind and easy. Cass watches the clouds like theyâre speaking a language she almost understands. Duke quietly guesses which passengers are afraid of flying and keeps being right every time. Tim actually falls asleep, mouth slightly open, protected from caffeine by Cass and whatever higher power is on duty. Jason goes back to reading Austen with the grim focus of a man determined to win an argument with a woman who will never know sheâs part of it. Damian finishes his drawing and, after a small hesitation, tears it carefully from the sketchbook and hands it to you.
You took it with both hands. Titus stood in the center of the page wearing a cape and a tiny cowl, one paw planted on a defeated vacuum cleaner.
âHe looks brave,â you said.
âHe is brave,â Damian replied.
âIs the vacuum cleaner dead?â
âSubdued.â
âOf course.â
Jason leaned over. âCan Titus have a gritty reboot?â
You laughed before you could stop yourself, and Bruceâs hand tightened around yours, his thumb brushing once over your skin like punctuation.
The old woman did not turn around again.
After a while, when the cabin had settled into that soft middle-of-flight hush and the clouds beyond the windows stretched white and endless beneath the wing, you leaned forward just enough for your voice to reach her. âI hope the rest of the flight is more comfortable for you.â
She turned slightly, embarrassed and stiff, no longer sharp enough to cut with. âThank you.â
You sat back.
Jason stared at you. âYouâre too nice.â
âNo,â you said. âIâm exactly nice enough.â
Bruceâs gaze warmed. âYes, you are.â
Damian frowned. âShe did not deserve courtesy.â
âCourtesy isnât always about deserve,â you said, watching the clouds glow like pale silk beyond the window. âSometimes itâs about who you want to be when someone else is small.â
Damian absorbed that with the deep displeasure of someone who had asked for ammunition and received a philosophy lesson.
Jason groaned softly. âGreat. Moral improvement at thirty thousand feet.â
âHydrate,â you told him. âItâll pass.â
Bruce lifted your hand and kissed your knuckles, the gesture hidden from most of the cabin by the angle of his body, but not from you. His lips were warm against your skin, brief and old-fashioned and tender in a way that made your heart ache.
âYou were magnificent,â he murmured.
âI was irritated.â
âMagnificently irritated.â
You smile despite yourself and look around at your family, scattered across the cabin just like the woman said. Loose change, she called them, or close enough. But she was wrong, the way people are always wrong when they mistake what they can count for what they can understand.
Not loose change, you thought.
A constellation.
Bright, stubborn, impossible stars, scattered across the dark and still belonging to the same sky.
YASSSS THE FIC REQUESTS R OPEN, IâVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE. I was thinking more of an atypical yandere situation where the reader is ok with it. Idk I hardly see any kind of fics like that. For characters I was thinking someone from the batfam? Not sure tho. Please and thank you đđ˝ đ
A/N: Hiiii!! Finally getting through my request inbox, yay!.
WARNING: I encourage all readers to make informed decisions about the content they read. Some of the content moving forward may be unsuitable for specific audiences. Please read at your own discretion.
Enjoy, Reader
The first time you realized Tim Drake was watching you, you did not feel afraid.
You probably should have. That was the joke, the part you kept rolling over in your mind later, private and greedy, until it gleamed. There were rules for people like you, the ones who counted rent and groceries and the humiliating math of survival. Tim Drake lived by different rules. He could stand under the chandeliered lights at a Wayne gala, untouched champagne in hand, looking bored by the weight of his own money. He was beautiful in a sleepless, knife-bright way, all dark hair and pale focus, his suit so expensive it faded into the background, his eyes too sharp for the soft mask he wore. Rich boys usually looked through you, past you, their attention sliding off like rain on glass. Tim didn't. He looked at you like he had found something worth keeping.
So you smiled.
Not too much. That mattered. A smile could be an invitation, mockery, nerves, gratitude, all in the teeth and the timing. You had learned that people gave themselves away when they thought they were being offered something. Tim gave himself away by holding still. His conversation with a silver-haired board member faded, then stopped. He didn't turn his head. He didn't stare. He just became aware of you, so completely that for one sharp second, the whole room seemed to bend around the line of his attention.
Bingo, you thought.
By then, you already knew enough. Tim Drake, Wayne-adjacent royalty, tech prince, adopted son, former boy genius, current insomniac in tailored wool. He had enough money to treat five figures like pocket change. Enough loneliness to make it dangerous. You had read the profiles, the gossip, the business blurbs, even old paparazzi comments about how he looked sadder in person. That was the detail that caught you. Maybe it should have made you wary, but you had always recognized that particular shade of sadness, the kind that paired longing with hunger. Once, a less careful version of you had trusted people who promised safety, leaving you emptier in the end. Loneliness was the one inheritance you still kept polished. It made you selective, hungry in your own way, drawn to the possibility of control instead of the pretense of belonging. Sad rich boys were useful. Sad rich boys with control issues were better. They liked to rescue. They liked to fix. They liked people who made them feel needed, only to punish them for it.
You were not afraid of obsession when it came wrapped in money.
You made him come to you by pretending not to see him again. You drifted through the gala like you belonged, though your invitation was a favor wrapped in a lie. You touched a donor's arm while laughing. You let your eyes pass over Tim once, twice, never long enough to give him certainty. When you finally stepped onto the balcony, you did it slowly, leaving behind the heat and perfume and old money, letting the winter air bite your cheeks until your eyes watered just enough.
He followed three minutes later.
Not two. Not five. Three. Close enough to be intent. Far enough to pretend to be a coincidence.
âNeeded air?â he asked.
His voice was softer than you expected, a little rough from underuse, threaded with that careful Gotham politeness people used when they had learned too young that every word could become evidence. He stood a few feet away, hands in his pockets, not trapping you against the railing, not yet. He was good. Better than you thought. That made your pulse kick, not with fear, but with interest.
You looked over your shoulder. âSomething like that.â
âYou donât seem like youâre enjoying yourself.â
You laughed under your breath and turned back toward the city. Gotham spread below in black glass and wet neon, its buildings cut into the night like old teeth. âIs anyone?â
âThat depends.â
âOn?â
âWhether they came here for the cause, the cameras, or the escape route.â
You glanced at him again, letting your expression flicker. Surprise first. Then amusement. Then a slip of sadness, lashes lowered, mouth softening like you'd been seen in a way you didn't want to admit. It was theater, but good theater needed a little truth. You were tired. You hated the room behind you. You wanted someone to choose you, even if you planned to charge them for it later.
âI came for the free food,â you said.
Timâs mouth twitched. âBold strategy.â
âIâm very brave.â
âI noticed.â
There it was. Too quick, too quiet, almost swallowed. A little confession in a black suit.
You let the silence stretch. Men like Tim always wanted to fill silence with proof. You had expected compliments, questions, maybe some awkward attempt at charm. Instead, he watched the reflection of the city lights move across your face and said, âYou shouldnât trust most people in there.â
You smiled faintly. âIncluding you?â
âEspecially me.â
You should have taken that as a warning. Later, when you replayed the balcony in your head, when every word rearranged itself into a map you had mistaken for weather, you would understand he had been honest from the beginning. That was the most obscene part. Tim had not lied. Not really. He had simply let you misunderstand the shape of the truth.
At the time, you only thought, Oh, this one wants to be dangerous.
So you gave him something to chase.
Not all at once. Never all at once. You let him have your number after making him work through a conversation about terrible coffee, Gotham rent, and your alleged reluctance to date anyone with a Wikipedia page. You made him smile twice and look wounded once. You let your fingertips brush his when he handed you back your phone, and you pretended not to notice how his pupils widened. The next morning, you waited six hours before replying to his first text.
Tim: I found the coffee place you mentioned. You were right. Itâs terrible.
You: I warned you.
Tim: I thought you were exaggerating.
You: Thatâs your first mistake.
Tim: Whatâs my second?
You: Thinking I give warnings twice.
It became a game, and you were good at games when the prize came with a trust fund. You gave him pieces of yourself, carefully chosen, a little bruised. A story about an ex who made you feel watched, just to see his reaction. A complaint about your landlord raising rent, because you wanted him to ask how much. A joke about needing a new laptop, because Tim Drake worked in tech and men loved to solve problems they could buy. He didn't offer right away. That almost disappointed you. Then, three days later, your laptop died in a cafĂŠ while you sat across from him, and Tim's gaze flicked to the blank screen with an expression so mild it was suspicious.
âThatâs inconvenient,â he said.
You sighed, pressing the power button again. âItâs fine. Itâs basically held together with spite anyway.â
âI can take a look.â
âOh? Wayne Tech support make house calls?
âFor you,â he said, and the words landed gently, almost shy, while his eyes remained too steady.
Your heart gave a pleased little kick. Hooked.
You let him walk you home that night. You made sure your apartment looked just vulnerable enough: thrifted furniture, a half-dead plant on the windowsill, cheap curtains, a blanket tossed over the sofa like you hadn't expected company. The nicer things were hidden in your closet. One drawer left slightly open, nothing inside. You wanted him to feel the urge to fix things. You wanted him to imagine himself as necessary.
Tim set your laptop on the table and opened it with long, precise fingers. He looked too natural in your space, dark coat folded over the back of a chair, sleeves rolled to his forearms, hair falling slightly into his eyes. It irritated you for a moment, how easily he belonged somewhere he had not earned. Then he glanced up and caught you watching him.
âWhat?â he asked.
âNothing.â
âThat didnât look like nothing.â
âYouâre very serious about a dying laptop.â
âIâm serious about most things.â
âSounds exhausting.â
âIt is.â
There was no self-pity in it. That made the line work better than it would have if he had tried. You softened your face on instinct, because people were locks and expressions were keys. âYou could try being unserious sometime.â
âWith you?â
âIf you survive.â
He smiled then, small and tired, and you felt the first strange tug of something that wasn't calculation. You stepped away from it fast.
The laptop revived because, apparently, Tim really was that good. You acted thrilled. He acted like the praise did not matter while absorbing every drop of it. The next day, a courier delivered a new laptop to your apartment, sleek and expensive, with no note except a little card tucked beneath the ribbon.
For when spite is no longer enough.
You laughed for a full minute.
Then you sold your old laptop, paid two overdue bills, and texted him a picture of the new one open on your kitchen table.
You: This is ridiculous.
Tim: Is that a complaint?
You: Itâs an observation.
Tim: Do you like it?
You waited. Made tea. Counted to one hundred. Let him feel the little cliff edge of your silence.
You: Yes. Thank you, Tim.
His reply came instantly.
Tim: Anything.
You stared at that word for a long time, heat unfurling behind your ribs like a wicked flower.
After that, you got bolder. Not reckless. Reckless people got caught; you preferred choreography. You complained about things he could fix. You arranged little misfortunes for him to solve. Your tire went flat two blocks from Wayne Tower because you let the air out yourself, and Tim arrived in twenty-two minutes, coat open, jaw tight, eyes scanning the street before he looked at you. Your phone 'accidentally' shared your location one night while you walked through a neighborhood safe enough to worry him, not dangerous enough to hurt you. He called in thirty seconds.
âWhere are you?â he asked.
You let your voice come out breathless. âWalking home.â
âWhy are you on Ninth?â
âItâs faster.â
âItâs not safer.â
You smiled into the dark. âAre you stalking my location, Tim?â
A pause. Not long. Not guilty enough.
âYou shared it with me.â
âBy accident.â
âYou havenât turned it off.â
You looked up at a flickering streetlamp, rain misting silver through the light. âMaybe I forgot.â
âNo, you didnât.â
Your smile faded, not from fear, but from the sudden cold edge in his voice. For a second, the game sharpened. "You sound very sure."
âI am.â
A black car turned the corner at the end of the block, headlights washing over wet pavement. It pulled up beside you without haste. The passenger window lowered, revealing Timâs face half-lit by the dashboard, expression calm and unreadable.
âGet in,â he said.
You should have been frightened. Instead, you felt triumphant enough to nearly laugh. He was already there. He had come when summoned without being summoned. He had placed himself exactly where you wanted him.
Still, you made him wait.
You leaned down toward the open window. âThat sounded like an order.â
âIt was.â
âTry again.â
His gaze traveled over your face, taking in the damp hair at your temples, the thin jacket you had chosen specifically because it made you look underprepared. His hand tightened once around the steering wheel. When he spoke again, his voice had gone softer, which somehow made it worse.
âPlease get in the car.â
You did.
The inside smelled like leather, rain, and coffee. There was a half-empty cup in the holder, three charging cords coiled too neatly, a tablet asleep on the console. Tim turned up the heat without asking. You watched him do it and felt the satisfaction of a plan unfolding exactly as designed.
âYou canât keep doing this,â he said.
âWalking?â
âTesting me.â
You let your head tip against the seat. âIs that what Iâm doing?â
âYes.â
âAnd are you passing?â
He did not answer immediately. Gotham slid past the windows in streaks of blue-black and gold, the cityâs reflections crawling over his face. At a red light, he turned to you. âDo you want me to?â
The question settled between you, velvet over wire.
You could have kissed him then. You almost did, not because it was time, not because it was useful, but because Tim Drake looking at you like that felt like standing too close to a locked door and hearing something breathe on the other side. Instead, you looked away first, giving him the victory because victories made men generous.
âI donât know,â you said.
A lie. You knew exactly what you wanted.
Money first. Safety second. Attention as needed. Affection negotiable. Tim, increasingly, as both resource and entertainment.
He became easier after that, and harder too. He bought you things, but only what you could accept without feeling bought. A better winter coat after yours went missing at a restaurant. Groceries when you joked that your fridge held only a lemon and a jar of mustard. A deposit for a new apartment disguised as a loan, terms so vague they felt like a ribbon around your throat. He never asked for repayment. He never asked for anything obvious at all, which made him feel less like prey and more like a room locking from the outside.
You ignored that sensation because the apartment was beautiful.
Not ostentatious. That would have made you suspicious. A renovated one-bedroom in a secure building, warm wood floors, deep windows, good locks, a doorman who knew your name the first day. Tim said the building belonged to a Wayne subsidiary, and he got you a reduced rate. You pretended to protest. He pretended to believe you. The dance was elegant by then.
The first night there, you stood barefoot in the living room among half-unpacked boxes while Tim installed something in the security panel by the door.
âWhat is that?â you asked.
âUpdated system. The old one had vulnerabilities.â
âNormal people just say congratulations on the apartment.â
âCongratulations on the apartment.â
âYou sound thrilled.â
âI am.â
âYouâre installing surveillance.â
âSecurity.â
âDifference?â
âConsent.â
You laughed, but his hands stilled on the panel, just for a second.
When he looked back at you, the city lights caught in his eyes and did not soften them. âDo you want me to stop?â
It was a trap, though not one you recognized. You thought the trap was yours, baited with need and helplessness and flirtation. You did not realize he was offering you a door and measuring whether you would close it yourself.
You folded your arms. âNo. I like feeling safe.â
Something moved across his face, too quick to name. Hunger, maybe. Relief. Possession, quiet and polite.
âGood,â he said.
From then on, Tim knew when your door opened. He knew when you came home. He knew when you stayed out late, and his texts would appear with unnatural timing.
Tim: Did you eat?
You: Hello to you too.
Tim: Did you?
You: Yes, Dad.
Tim: Ew, don't call me that.
You: Bossy.
Tim: Only when you make bad decisions.
You: Then you must be bossy a lot.
Tim: Constantly.
You flirted with other people in front of him. That was one of your favorite tools, cruel as it was. Nothing serious. A laugh held too long at a Wayne fundraiser. A hand on someone's arm in the lobby. A date you arranged mostly to cancel after Tim saw the reservation flash on your phone. He never exploded. He never begged. He just got quieter, and the quiet was addictive, the way storms are when you're safe behind glass.
One evening, after a man from your building offered to help carry your groceries and you accepted with a bright smile, Tim appeared in your apartment twenty minutes later without knocking.
You were arranging oranges in a bowl when the door opened. You looked up, startled for real that time, and Tim stepped inside with your spare key in his hand.
You stared at it. âWhere did you get that?â
âYou gave it to me.â
âNo, I didnât.â
âYou left it in my car last week.â
âThat was an accident.â
âNo, it wasnât.â
The oranges sat between you like small suns, absurdly cheerful. Your mouth went dry. Tim locked the door behind him. Not a slam. Just a click, clean, and final.
âYouâre very confident tonight,â you said.
âYou like that.â
You laughed, but it came out thinner than intended. âYou think you know what I like?â
âI know you hate being ignored. You like being chased, but not caught too quickly. You like gifts more when you can pretend you resisted them. You like making me jealous because it proves Iâm watching. You like leaving doors open and pretending it was carelessness.â He set the key on the table. âAnd you liked knowing I had this.â
The room seemed to tilt, just a little. Not enough to fall. Enough to notice gravity had shifted.
âYouâre making a lot of accusations.â
âIâm making observations.â
You hated that he used your own words. Hated the little echo of your earlier game. Hated more that your pulse had started to beat too quickly, not entirely from fear.
Tim crossed the room slowly, stopping on the other side of the kitchen island. He did not touch you. That restraint felt deliberate, almost surgical. âDid he touch you?â
âThe neighbor?â
âDid he?â
âHe carried groceries, Tim.â
âThatâs not an answer.â
âThatâs exactly an answer.â
His jaw flexed. âYou shouldnât invite strangers up.â
âI didnât invite him up. He helped me to the door.â
âDonât.â
You arched a brow. âDonât?â
âDonât make me watch someone else put their hands where I should be.â
The words should have frightened you more. Instead, your body responded first, heating your spine, annoyance and thrill tangled together. Fear fizzed behind your ribs, but it never made it all the way to the surface, too muddled with anticipation, with something that felt dangerously close to satisfaction. You wanted to recoil from him, but a part of you leaned in, hungry for the validation and repulsed by what it cost. Beneath it all, guilt pricked at you; a sharp, almost shameful reminder that you were as much to blame for this slow spiral as he was. This was what you had been coaxing out of him, wasn't it? The obsession, the crack in the Wayne mask, the proof you mattered enough to unmake him. You wanted the monster to show its teeth. You just hadn't expected them to look so familiar up close.
âYouâre not my boyfriend,â you said.
âNo.â
âYouâre not my keeper.â
His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth. âNo.â
âYou donât own me.â
âNo,â Tim said again, and the softness of it was almost tender. âNot yet.â
The silence that followed had a pulse.
You should have ended it then. You should have thrown the key at him, told him to leave, changed the locks, deleted his number, found another mark with less shadow behind his eyes. Instead, you stepped around the island and stopped close enough to smell the rain in his coat.
âCareful,â you said. âYouâre starting to sound obsessed.â
Tim looked down at you. âStarting?â
That was the first time he kissed you. Or maybe you kissed him. Later, the distinction became another useless little object at the bottom of a dark drawer. His mouth was controlled for exactly three seconds before control became something hungrier. He kissed like he had been thinking about it too long, like restraint was a debt he had grown tired of paying. His hand came to your jaw, firm enough to angle you where he wanted, gentle enough to let you pretend you could stop him. You did not. You wound your fingers into his shirt and felt his heartbeat hammering beneath the expensive fabric.
It was supposed to close the con.
That was what you told yourself when he started sleeping over. When half his wardrobe appeared in your closet as if the apartment had slowly accepted him. When he began bringing work to your kitchen table, Wayne Enterprises code glowing across his screen while you pretended not to understand any of it. When he paid for things before you could ask and watched you accept them with that same unnerving, patient satisfaction. You told yourself you were winning because your bills were paid, your fridge was full, your body was warm at night, and Tim Drake looked at you like the world was a problem he would solve with blood if necessary.
Then people began disappearing from the edges of your life.
Not many. Not enough to make a pattern anyone else would notice. A man who had cornered you outside a bar and refused to take no for an answer. A landlord from your old building who kept sending âaccidentalâ messages. The neighbor with the groceries, who suddenly moved out without saying goodbye, leaving behind a rumor about debt, fraud, something ugly found on his work computer. You asked Tim about that one because the timing bothered you.
He was making coffee in your kitchen at dawn, barefoot and half-dressed, dark hair sleep-tangled, looking almost human in the blue-gray light.
âDid you do something to Evan?â you asked.
Tim poured coffee into your favorite mug. âWho?â
You watched him. âMy neighbor.â
âYour former neighbor.â
âTim.â
He slid the mug toward you. âHe had problems.â
âWhat kind?â
âThe kind that make it hard to stay in Gotham.â
Cold moved through your stomach. âDid you cause them?â
Tim leaned against the counter, studying you over the rim of his mug. âWould it bother you if I did?â
That was another door. Another test. You saw it this time and still could not tell which answer was safer.
âIt depends,â you said.
âOn?â
âWhether he deserved it.â
Timâs gaze softened in a way that made you feel, absurdly, rewarded. âHe did.â
You believed him because it was easier. Evan had been too friendly. The old landlord was awful. The man outside the bar had scared you. Every disappearance had a justification, and Tim removed only people you wouldn't miss. That was how he trained you, though you didn't call it that. You let yourself believe it was protection, not erasure. You told yourself it was fate, not blame. And every time you smoothed over a worry, you wondered, briefly, guiltily, how much you were pretending, and how much you actually agreed. He made violence feel like service. He made your silence feel like complicity. He made complicity feel intimate.
By spring, you had stopped pretending the relationship was normal, but you had not stopped pretending you were in control.
Your plan had evolved. The first goal had been money. The second was leverage. If Tim ever became too much, you thought, you would gather enough evidence to protect yourself. You kept screenshots. Notes. Dates. Little records hidden in a cloud account under a false name, because you were not stupid. You documented the gifts, the installed security system, the suspicious disappearances, the way Tim sometimes knew things he had no reason to know. You saved it all like an insurance policy.
Then, one rainy Thursday, the folder vanished.
Not deleted. Not hacked in the flashy way movies promised, with skull icons and dramatic warnings. It simply became empty. Your backup drive is corrupted. Your burner email locked you out. Your notes app showed blank pages where careful lists had been. For ten full minutes, you sat on the edge of your bed with your phone in your hand, all the blood in your body turning slow and cold.
Tim texted at 9:07 p.m.
Tim: Donât panic.
You stared.
You: What did you do?
Tim: Cleaned up something dangerous.
You: That was mine.
Tim: It was a liability.
You: You went through my private files?
Tim: Yes.
There was no apology. Not even a decorative one.
You called him. He answered before the first ring finished.
âWhere are you?â you demanded.
âAt work.â
âDonât lie to me.â
A pause. Then the faint sound of keys, a door closing, rain against glass. âIâm not.â
âYou deleted my files.â
âI removed evidence that could hurt you.â
âThat could hurt you.â
âYes,â he said. âThat too.â
Your laugh broke sharply and humorlessly. âAt least youâre honest.â
âI try to be with you.â
âThatâs psychotic.â
âI know.â
Something about the calmness of it made your throat tighten. âYou know?â
âYes.â
âAnd what? Thatâs supposed to make it better?â
âNo.â
âThen why say it?â
âBecause you like knowing what I am.â
You went still.
Timâs voice lowered, not seductive, not pleading. Simply certain. âYou liked it from the beginning. You saw the shape of me before most people do, and instead of running, you stepped closer. You pulled strings. You left openings. You wanted proof I couldnât stop looking. You wanted my money, my attention, my jealousy. You wanted the cage as long as you thought you were holding the key.â
Your apartment felt suddenly too full of cameras, too full of locks, too full of him, though he was not physically there. You stood and moved to the security panel by the door. The screen glowed quietly. Armed. Watching.
âYou donât know anything,â you said.
âI know everything.â
It was not boastful. That was the problem. Tim did not sound triumphant. He sounded tired, almost gentle, as if he were telling you the weather had changed and you should bring a coat.
âNo,â you said, because denial was a small animal in your chest trying to survive.
âI knew about the gala invitation. I knew who got it for you. I knew what you searched before you came. I knew when you looked up my net worth, my job, my dating history, old photos, rumors about my family. I knew when your laptop was going to âdieâ because you downloaded the wrong thing on purpose and I let it happen. I knew about the tire. I knew about the location sharing. I knew about the folder.â
Your hand gripped the edge of the table. âYou let me think I was scamming you.â
âI needed to see how far youâd go.â
âYou needed?â
âI needed to know if you would choose me when you thought you were choosing yourself.â
The words slid under your skin, sharp as a blade.
âYouâre insane,â you whispered.
âIâve been worse.â
The call ended.
For one second, nothing moved. Then your security panel chirped, and the lock clicked open.
Tim stepped inside, soaked with rain, black coat dripping on your floor, face pale in the hallway light. You hadn't heard the elevator. You hadn't heard footsteps. No umbrella. His hair stuck to his forehead. There was something almost beautiful about him then, something ruined and devoted, like a saint made from sleeplessness and bad intentions.
You backed up.
He noticed. Of course, he noticed. Pain flickered across his face, quickly swallowed. âDonât do that.â
âYou broke into my apartment.â
âYou gave me access.â
âI gave you a key.â
âYou gave me more than that.â
âBecause you manipulated me.â
âBecause we manipulated each other.â Tim closed the door behind him. The lock clicked. âYou just didnât know I was better at it.â
Your breath shook. Anger arrived then, hot and grateful. It saved you from fear for a moment. âSo what now? You tell me Iâm trapped? You reveal the master plan? Very dramatic, Tim. Do you have a villain monologue prepared?â
His mouth twitched without humor. âIâm not a villain.â
âYouâre stalking me, controlling my apartment, deleting my evidence, and apparently ruining peopleâs lives when they annoy you.â
âWhen they threaten you.â
âWhen they annoy you,â you snapped.
He flinched, just barely. Not from guilt. From the edge in your voice. He hated when you sounded afraid, you realized. Hated it and wanted to be the cause anyway. That contradiction sat in him like a second skeleton.
âI have never hurt anyone who didnât deserve it,â he said.
âThat is exactly what dangerous people say.â
âYes.â
You stared at him, trembling now, though you refused to let it become visible enough to satisfy him. âWhat do you want?â
Tim looked at you for a long time, and the answer was already everywhere: in the locks, the gifts, the disappeared files, the wardrobe in your closet, the way he had entered your life like a man accepting an invitation you did not remember sending.
âYou,â he said.
âPeople arenât things.â
âI know.â
âYou donât get to keep me because youâre lonely.â
âIâm not lonely when Iâm with you.â
âThatâs not an answer.â
âItâs the only one that matters.â
You moved toward your bedroom, not because there was anywhere to go, but because your body needed direction. Tim did not grab you. He followed at a measured pace, giving you just enough room to feel hunted rather than seized. You snatched your phone off the bed, thumb flying toward emergency call, and the screen went black.
Not dead. Locked.
A small red icon pulsed once in the corner and vanished.
Your stomach dropped.
âWhat did you do?â you asked, your voice very quiet.
âI made sure you wouldnât make a call youâd regret.â
âYou mean a call youâd regret.â
âThe Bats wouldnât help you the way you think.â
The sentence was wrong. Wrong in shape, wrong in weight. You turned slowly.
Tim stood in the bedroom doorway, rainwater darkening his collar, his expression unreadable.
âThe Bats?â you repeated.
His silence opened like a trapdoor beneath your feet.
It happened stupidly, then. Not with a grand confession, not with a cape unfurling under moonlight, not with a dramatic mask pulled from a drawer. It happened because lightning flashed beyond the window and lit the room for half a second, catching on the narrow shelf behind him where you had once seen a small locked case. The case is open now. Inside lay red armor, black fabric, a folded domino mask, and the unmistakable stylized emblem you had seen on news footage a hundred times.
Red Robin.
Your mind tried to reject it, then rearranged every fact with nauseating speed. The impossible timing. The silent entrances. The surveillance felt too professional. The injuries he hid beneath expensive shirts. The way he spoke about dangerous people. Bruce Wayneâs son. Tech genius. Gotham nights. Missing hours.
Hmmmm, some hysterical little part of you thought, bright and absurd through the terror, maybe this was a bad idea.
Your knees almost laughed for you.
âYouâre Red Robin,â you said.
Timâs gaze did not leave your face. âYes.â
âYouâre Red Robin.â
âYes.â
âAnd I thought I was scamming a rich kid with stalking issues.â
A strange softness passed through him, nearly fond. âI know.â
âOh, thatâs humiliating.â
That startled a laugh out of him. Just one breath, cracked at the edges. It would have been sweet in another life. In this one, it made your skin prickle.
You sat down on the bed because standing seemed overly ambitious. âBatman knows youâre like this?â
Timâs expression cooled. âBruce knows what he needs to know.â
No fucking way. Bruce is Batman. Tim Drake is Red Robin. Which means you just stepped into a mansion full of crazy psychos in spandex and metal boomerangs.Â
âThat sounds like no.â
âThat sounds like Iâm careful.â
âYouâre not careful. Youâre deranged.â
âIâm both.â
You looked at the armor again, then at the apartment, the locks, the dead phone in your hand, your beautiful secure building owned by a Wayne subsidiary, your life moved piece by piece into a place Tim could control. You hadn't found a mark. You'd found a vigilante with a billionaire's resources, a detective's patience, and a wound where normal attachment should be. Worse, he had found you first.
âYou set me up,â you said.
His eyes softened. âYou set yourself up. I just made the path easier.â
âYou made me think I was winning.â
âYou were.â He stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal. âYou got the apartment. The money. The attention. The protection. You got everything you wanted.â
âAt what cost?â
âMe.â
Its simplicity took your breath away.
He knelt in front of you. Not submissive. Never that. It was worse because he made kneeling feel like possession from below, his hands resting on either side of your knees without touching, his eyes lifted to yours with terrible devotion.
âI know what you did,â he said quietly. âI know why you did it. I know you were going to leave once you had enough. I know you told yourself I was a problem you could manage. I know you thought, if it got bad, you could expose me.â His voice gentled further. âBut you canât expose Red Robin without exposing yourself to Batman, Nightwing, Oracle, the entire family. You canât run without me finding you. You canât go to the police with gifts you accepted, lies you told, evidence you tried to gather and hide. You canât disappear because every system you use has already learned my name before yours.â
A tear slipped down your cheek before you could stop it. Tim watched it fall with naked hunger and pain, as if it hurt him to see it and fed something starving in him anyway.
âYouâre scaring me,â you whispered.
âI know.â His hand rose, slow enough for refusal. You did not move. His thumb brushed the tear from your cheek with devastating tenderness. âIâm sorry.â
âNo, youâre not.â
His eyes flicked to your mouth. âNot enough to stop.â
There it was. The whole ugly cathedral of him, all at once.
You should have hated him. Part of you did. Another part, the worst part, the part that had smiled on the balcony and thought obsession looked like opportunity, understood with a sick little twist of recognition that Tim had not created the game alone. He had only been willing to play it to the end. You had baited the hook. He had swallowed it and dragged you into deeper water.
It was almost funny, the way you felt a flicker of pride burning under the fear, knowing you had finally found someone playing at your level. There was a thrill in the realization, a sick exhilaration, like two predators circling, each waiting for the other to blink first. You could not even pretend you were innocent. You craved the danger of being understood. Somewhere beneath the guilt and the anger, you recognized the satisfaction of being chosen not for your weakness, but for your sharpness, for every mask you wore and every lie you shaped to survive. You had always wanted to win, but you had hungered even more for a real opponent. In Tim, you saw your reflection; hungry, cunning, desperate for proof you existed. Responsibility tasted bitter on your tongue, but you could not deny that some part of you reveled in the symmetry of being matched, even as it threatened to undo you.
âWhat happens if I say I want out?â you asked.
Timâs hand stilled against your face.
The room seemed to listen.
âYou can say it,â he replied.
âThatâs not what I asked.â
âI know.â
You laughed once, broken and breathless. âGod, Tim.â
His expression tightened at the sound, not displeased. Your fear hadn't made him retreat. Your anger hadn't made him defensive. Even your disgust seemed to become part of the collection, proof you were here, proof you were feeling something because of him.
âI wonât hurt you,â he said.
âYouâve already hurt me.â
His brows drew together, and for one terrible second, he looked young, almost lost. âI wonât break you.â
âComforting distinction.â
âYou can hate me for a while.â
âFor a while?â
âAs long as you need.â
âGenerous.â
His hand slid from your cheek to the side of your throat, not squeezing, only resting there where your pulse betrayed you. âYouâll understand eventually.â
âThat sounds like something a kidnapper says.â
Tim looked at you, and the silence answered before he did.
Your blood chilled.
âAm I allowed to leave this apartment?â you asked.
âYes.â
âAlone?â
His thumb moved once against your pulse.
âNot tonight.â
No chain. No locked basement. No dramatic violence. Just a beautiful apartment, a dead phone, a vigilante kneeling between your knees, and the slow, crushing understanding that every exit you could imagine had already been mapped by someone who loved you like a crime scene. You thought Tim Drake's obsession would be a vault you could crack. Instead, it was a citywide system of doors, cameras, favors, masks, brothers in capes, and one dark-eyed genius who decided you were safer as a permanent thing.
You swallowed. âWhat do you want me to do?â
âFor tonight?â he asked.
âFor tonight.â
âStay.â
âAs if I have a choice.â
âYou do,â Tim said, and there was the lie at last, soft as snowfall over a grave. âYou just wonât like the consequences of the other ones.â
You stared at him until your eyes burned. âYouâre horrible.â
âI know.â
âYouâre not supposed to agree.â
âI told you,â he murmured, leaning closer until his forehead nearly touched yours. âI try to be honest with you.â
âYou used me.â
âYou used me first.â
âYou wanted me to.â
âYes.â
You closed your eyes, and his breath trembled. That was the thing that would ruin you, if anything did. Not the money. Not the danger. Not even the secret identity folded in the corner like a nightmare with Kevlar seams. It was the trembling. The proof that under all the planning, all the surveillance, all the cold patience, Tim Drake was still barely holding himself back from clutching you like salvation and catastrophe wore the same face.
âI hate you,â you whispered.
His lips brushed your temple. âNot forever.â
âYou donât know that.â
âI do.â
âHow?â
âBecause you hate losing more.â
Your eyes opened.
Timâs gaze met yours, dark and brilliant and unbearably awake. âAnd youâre going to want to prove you can still win.â
The worst part was that he was right.
A slow, horrified smile tugged at your mouth before you could hide it. Tim saw. Of course, he saw. His expression changed, deepened, something possessive and adoring moving through the exhaustion.
âThere,â he whispered.
You wanted to slap him. You wanted to kiss him. You wanted your laptop, your old apartment, your foolish little folder of evidence, your belief that you could put a leash on a monster and sell tickets to the show. Instead, you sat very still while Red Robin, Tim Drake, the rich boy with stalking issues who had never once been only that, rested his head against your lap as he had come home.
Outside, Gotham glittered wet and watchful beyond the windows. Somewhere, sirens wailed, thin and distant. Somewhere above, Batman moved through the dark with his own judgment, unaware or unwilling to see what his son had built in the quiet of your apartment. Tim's arms circled your waist, careful, almost reverent, and you realized with a cold bloom of awe that the trap didn't feel like snapping shut.
It felt like breathing in and finding his name already in your lungs.
âYou planned everything,â you said, your voice faint.
âNo,â Tim murmured against you. âNot everything.â
âWhat didnât you plan?â
His hold tightened, just enough to be felt.
âHow much Iâd love you.â
You looked down at him, at the damp dark hair, the bruised shadows beneath his eyes, the vigilante armor waiting open in its case, the beautiful disaster you had mistaken for prey. Your fingers hovered above his head. You did not touch him. Not yet. That was the only power you had left in the room, and both of you knew it. Even now, with his body kneeling at your feet and the apartment mapped in his design, the room paid attention to that pause. Your restraint bent the balance, the decision to touch or withhold granting you a sliver of control. For all his planning, Tim waited. And in that waiting, you reminded him he did not own every move; some were still yours to play.
Tim waited.
Patient. Devoted. Dangerous.
You let the silence stretch until his breathing changed.
Then you lowered your hand into his hair, very lightly, and felt him shudder like you had forgiven him, though you had done no such thing.
Fine, you thought, the word bitter and bright inside you. New game.
Tim smiled against your thigh.
And that was when you understood he had heard you without needing a single word.
Content Warning: 18+, Kidnapping, Captivity/Forced Confinement, Stalking, Obsessive Behavior, Yandere Themes, Coercive Control, Psychological Abuse, Intimidation, Punishment, Forced Obedience, Possessive Behavior, Nonconsensual Touching, Sexual Coercion, Forced Nudity, Oral Sexual Assault, Dubious Consent/Nonconsent, Power Imbalance, Humiliation, Dehumanization, Pet Play Undertones, Choking/Throat Grabbing, Restraint, Fear-Based Arousal, Victim Blaming, Stockholm Syndrome Themes, Trauma Bonding, Gaslighting, Isolation, Surveillance, Loss Of Autonomy, Forced Dependency, Explicit Sexual Content, Dark Romance, Romanticized Abuse. DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT
A/N: Highly requested, here you go. Imagine Damian Wayne in his mid to late twenties.
WARNING: Some of the content moving forward may be unsuitable for specific audiences. Please read at your own discretion.
Enjoy, Reader
Compliance Pt. 1 Here
Damian did not drag you away from the door at first.
That was the first cruelty, you realized. Not the grip on your wrist, not the way his fingers closed around the fragile, frantic pulse beneath your skin, not even the fact that he had caught you with your hand hovering over the keypad like a guilty thought made flesh. The cruelty was that he made you stand there, inside the consequence of it. He let the moment breathe. He let your fear ripen. He let the room become aware of you both, the walls humming softly with filtered air, the ceiling lights bathing everything in a warm artificial dusk, the locked door at your back, and him before you, impossibly still, impossibly calm, his body placed between you and every version of the world where you still belonged to yourself.
âYou were leaving,â he said.
His voice was quiet, almost gentle, but something raw edged beneath it, darker than anger, older than jealousy. Not the careful boy who once fed you soup and called it comfort. His thumb pressed against your pulse, feeling how your heart kicked against him.
âI was trying to,â you whispered.
His eyes lifted to yours.
That was a mistake.
You saw it the moment his face shifted. Not rage, no, rage would have been human, hot, noisy, something that burned out. What moved through Damian was colder, private, a terrible kind of wonder, as if you had tried to carve out one of his ribs and wear it around your neck.
âYou admit it,â he murmured.
You swallowed. âYou already knew.â
âI wanted to hear you say it.â
The safehouse shrank around the words. Soap lingered on his skin, metal from the door, clean cotton, something sharp and stormlike clinging to him from wherever heâd been. A dark curl fell across his forehead, making him look younger for a moment, until you met his eyes. Nothing young there. Nothing soft. Nothing uncertain.
He looked devoted.
That was worse than hatred.
âDamian,â you tried, because his name had worked before, because some instinct in you remembered the way he had gone still when you said it, the way the sound had dragged something almost vulnerable through his face. But this time, his fingers tightened around your wrist, and the look he gave you made your throat close.
âNo,â he said gently. âYou donât get to say my name like that after this.â
A thin, cold panic slid through you. âLike what?â
âLike youâre asking me to forgive you before you understand what you did.â
âWhat I did?â Your voice broke higher, incredulous and frightened. âYou kidnapped me.â
âI brought you home.â
âThis isnât my home.â
His face softened.
It should not have terrified you, but it did. The softness was wrong; no doubt, no shame, no flicker of recognition that he stood in front of you in an underground room, your phone gone, your shoes hidden, three locks between you and the city. He looked at you like you had misunderstood the weather.
âIt will be,â he said. âThat is the point.â
You shook your head once, too fast, the motion barely more than a tremor. âYou canât actually believe that.â
âI donât need belief.â His free hand rose. You flinched, but he only touched your face with two fingers, so lightly the gentleness felt obscene. âI have patience.â
You turned your face away from his hand.
The air shifted.
Damianâs expression went very, very still.
For a moment, there was only the blood in your ears and the low electrical purr of the walls. His hand hovered where your cheek had been, fingers curved, tenderness denied and left to rot. When he spoke, the words came slow, each one placed with surgical care.
âThat was the second mistake.â
Your stomach dropped. âSecond?â
âThe first was trying to leave.â His eyes moved over you; bare feet, shaking legs, the shirt heâd given you because your own clothes were gone for washing, inspection, or whatever word he used for stealing pieces of your life and arranging them into obedience. âThe second was pulling away when I was deciding to be kind.â
âYou call this kind?â
âYes.â
The answer came without hesitation.
Something inside you curled around the horror of that certainty.
Damian stepped closer. You backed into the door, metal cold through thin fabric at your spine. The keypad beside your shoulder blinked its small red light, useless as a dead star. He didnât touch you, but caged you anyway, one hand braced against the wall, the other still holding your wrist. He lowered his face until his breath stirred the hair near your temple.
âYou are going to learn the difference,â he whispered.
âBetween what?â
âBetween me being patient and me correcting you.â
Your skin prickled. âYou said correction wasnât pain.â
âIt isnât.â His mouth was close enough to your ear that every syllable felt like a hand sliding under your skin. âPain is crude. Pain teaches panic. You already know how to panic.â
You hated that. Hated the quiet assessment in his voice. Hated that he had studied you enough to say it like a fact. Hated that your body, stupid frightened animal, had gone rigid and awake beneath his nearness, reading him in heat and breath and proximity while your mind screamed danger.
Worse, beneath the terror, a confused heat flickered low in your belly, shameful and unwanted. Your skin tingled with a response you could not control. Something traitorous in you tightened deep inside, hunger threading through the fear. You despised the way your body answered him, how it ached against your will, leaving you torn between mortification and longing.
âWhat are you going to do?â you asked.
Damian pulled back only enough to look at you.
There was a strange brightness in his eyes now. Not happiness. Not pleasure in any simple sense. It was a purpose, black and shining.
âI am going to remove the fantasy,â he said.
âWhat fantasy?â
âThat there is anywhere for you to go.â
The words went through you like winter water.
âYou are going to learn the difference between kindness and cruelty. You are going to learn the difference between when I am gentle and when I am angry.â His voice was low, almost a purr, but there was an edge to it, a razorâs sharpness that made you freeze.
âAnd you are going to learn very quickly that right now, I am being very, very kind.â
He pressed closer, not quite touching, but close enough that you could feel the heat of his body, the hard planes of his chest and abdomen. His free hand came up to cup your chin, fingers wrapping gently around your jaw as he tilted your head back, forcing you to meet his intense gaze.
âNow, listen carefully. Iâm only going to explain this once.â His thumb brushed over your lower lip, a soft caress that belied the sternness in his eyes.
"Every time you pull away," he murmured, his thumb still tracing your lip, "I will pull you back twice as hard. Every time you try to run, I will chain you to my bed. Every time you speak against me, I will find a more... creative way to teach you silence."
His voice dropped lower, almost intimate now, a whisper against your ear. "Do you understand what I'm telling you?"
He made a low sound, almost pleased, as he watched the fear flicker in your eyes. He leaned back just enough to let the moment settle, then his hand slid from your chin to your throat, fingers curling there, careful but unyielding.
"Good girl."Â
The praise landed cold, empty of warmth. His thumb lingered at your pulse, feeling the frantic beat beneath your skin.
"Now," he said softly, "let's make sure you understand compliance this time around."
His grip tightened, not enough to choke, just enough to remind you of his strength. His other hand found your wrist, steady and sure.
"When I tell you to do something, you do it immediately and without question. If I tell you to kneel, you kneel. If I tell you to strip, you strip. If I tell you to crawl, you crawl." He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. "Have I made myself clear?"
âDamian,â You wheeze out, but his hand stays where it is for a few more seconds, his eyes dark and calculating, searching your face for resistance. Then he releases, his hand falling away from your neck.Â
The first breaths scraped your throat, sharp as glass.
âCome.â
There was nowhere left but him now.
You followed Damian back to the bed where you first woke, something cold twisting in your stomach.
Your gaze darted to where Damian waited, head tilted, watching.
Heâs expecting something.
What?
âYour clothes.â Damian says.
âMy what?â You repeat back, hoarsely? Maybe you heard him wrong.Â
You hope you heard him wrong.
"Your clothes," Damian repeats, his voice flat and unreadable. He takes a step closer, his eyes dark and unwavering. "Take. Them. Off." He makes a small motion with his hand, indicating the shirt you're wearing, the only thing on your body now. "I said I was going to be kind. I am being kind by asking rather than tearing them away from you. Do not mistake my patience for leniency." His gaze drops pointedly to the hem of the shirt. "Now. Undress."
Your fingers shook on the hem of the shirt.
Humiliation burned, hot and raw. His hand at your throat lingered in your mind. You hesitated, just long enough for impatience to flicker across his face.
He didnât move. Didnât speak. Just watched you with that stillness, more frightening than any threat. The air pressed in, thick and close.
"If I have to do it myself," Damian said softly, his voice almost gentle, "it won't be kind anymore." His hands flexed slightly at his sides, as if preparing to reach out and grab the shirt himself.Â
You knew what would happen if you didnât move. He wouldnât hesitate. Your heart hammered. Slowly, your shaking hands lifted the shirt, skin bared.
âSit.â Damian says,
You know this part. The lessons have shaped you more than youâll admit.
You sit at his feet, eyes lowered, shaking.
You have never felt more humiliated. Bare before a man who treats you like a pet. Like a thing.
A conquest.
Damian stood over you, calm and terrifying. Your nakedness meant nothing to him. You were something to be arranged, a possession finally in place. He reached out, fingers twisting in your hair, tilting your head back until your neck was bared and your eyes met his.
"Good," he murmured, the word devoid of affection, merely a marker of obedience achieved. "Humiliation is a teacher."
Damian's hand found the band of his sweatpants. Your eyes closed, bracing for what came next.
You heard the soft thud of clothes hitting the floor. When you opened your eyes, you saw him, hard beneath black boxers.
He stepped closer, filling your senses with his cologne: sandalwood, amber, oud. Heavy, almost nauseating.
Beneath it all, you caught something else.
Possessiveness.
Tears welled as the truth settled in. This was happening. This was your new reality.
His hand moved, slow and deliberate, and you whimpered. When you hesitated, his grip in your hair tightened, dragging your head back until you had to look up at him. The dominance, the satisfaction, the lack of remorse, something inside you cracked.
He pressed his thumb against your lips, forcing them apart. This was yours now.
Your lips parted, slow and mechanical, your body already learning its new role. Damianâs eyes flashed with approval. His hand left your hair for your jaw, guiding you, the other steady at your shoulder.
"Take me in," he commanded softly, his voice low and hypnotic. "Show me you're mine." His thumb pressed against your bottom lip again, pushing it down further. "All the way."
He watched your face twist, your cheeks hollow as you took him deep. He hit the back of your throat, made you gag, but you didnât pull away. You took it, learning your place.
"That's it," He breathed out with a shudder, his hand in your hair tightening slightly.Â
"You're doing so well." He pulled out a little, allowing you to breathe before he pushed back in, hitting that spot that made your eyes water. "Who do you belong to?"
His hand twisted in your hair, forcing your head back. Tears streaked your cheeks, his length filling your mouth.
"Who. Do. You. Belong. To." The words were sharp, demanding an answer. His hips began to move, fucking your face slow and deep, claiming you completely. "Say it with your mouth full." He pushed in harder, holding you there until you choked slightly before pulling out again. "Come on, Hayati. Say it."
You tried to form the words, garbled and wet, muffled by him. "Mmm-yours... Damian..." Saliva dripped down your chin, dignity gone. Damian groaned, the sound vibrating against your lips.
"Good," he murmured, easing his hips forward again, burying himself deeper. "Remember that feeling." He held your head still, taking his time. "Now, swallow."
His release came suddenly and hot, pulsing down your throat. He held your head, making you swallow, not letting anything escape.
The taste was bitter, salty, a reminder you belonged to him now. He groaned above you, emptying himself. When he finally pulled out, your lips were swollen, your mouth messy, your body shaking. He looked down, satisfied.
"Good girl."
He wiped the mess from your mouth with his thumb, cleaning you with a tenderness that chilled.
"Swallow it all," he murmured, watching your throat move. "Every drop belongs inside you." He tucked himself away, the moment gone cold. He looked down at you, naked and trembling. "Stand up."
Damian watched as you stood, his stare harsh and unrelenting.
âI hope this lesson has been enough for you to understand.â Damian says.
âThis isnât love, Damian,â you whisper out.
âYou mistake me then,â Damian responds. You look up at him as your eyes meet.
âIf not me, then someone else. If not here, then somewhere else. Gotham canât have you. Gotham doesnât deserve you.â
Thereâs a beat of silence. Then Damian spoke again.
âI love you too much for this place to corrupt you.â Damian finishes, the words sitting heavy in your chest.
The words hung, heavy and close. Damian stepped in, eyes dark with something almost like pain.
"Don't confuse my methods with a lack of feeling," he said quietly, his voice dangerously soft. "This is protection. This is preservation. I am carving out a space for you where the city cannot touch what matters." His hand cupped your face, thumb brushing away fresh tears. "Gotham would eat you alive, turn your softness into something jagged and cruel."
âPerhaps I have been too harsh in my devotion.â Damianâs chest met your face, and you stumbled back, confused, but he kept walking you back until your knees hit the bed. You fell, landing hard on the mattress, the comforter soft beneath you. A stark contrast to the man who put it there.
âOpen.â Damian says.
You open your mouth.
âNo,â Damian corrects, pushing your thighs apart. Your heart drums in your ears, blood rushing everywhere, to your head, across your body, humiliatingly, down there.
Damian kneels, sinking to the floor as if he is about to begin prayer, kissing the inner parts of your upper thighs.
âI love you.â His voice is strained, as if the words were too much and not enough.
His lips trailed up your thigh, his hands pushing your legs wider. He was gentle now, nothing like he was a minute ago.
"I love you," he repeated, his voice muffled against your skin. His tongue flicked out, tasting you slowly, reverently, like he was worshipping something precious instead of taking it.Â
Each kiss felt like an apology, each lick a promise. Love twisted into obsession."
Damian's mouth found your center, his tongue parting your folds and delving inside.
He was slow, deliberate, arms wrapped around your legs to keep you open.
He licked you slowly, tongue curling against your clit with gentle pressure.
"Stay because I love you," he murmured between licks, "Not because I'm keeping you captive." His fingers joined his mouth, sliding into you with ease, proving just how ready he'd made you earlier.
He looked up at you from between your thighs, his eyes filled with a raw intensity that was almost vulnerable. "I want you to choose me," he whispered against your sensitive flesh, his fingers curling inside you gently. "Not out of fear or obligation, but because you know I would burn Gotham down for you." His tongue circled your clit slowly, deliberately building pleasure instead of demanding it. "Stay with me willingly," he pleaded softly, almost breaking character in his desperation for genuine affection.
For a moment, you were caught between the ache he drew from your body and the chaos in your chest. Confusion warred with longing, a stubborn part of you resisting the comfort of his touch even as something deeper wanted to give in. Was it real, this tenderness? Or just another shape his devotion took to bind you tighter? You tried to catch your breath, furious at the tremor of need that moved through you alongside fear.
Your back arched, a broken moan escaping as his tongue worked you. Damian watched your face, grip tightening on your thighs. "Your body knows," he murmured, mouth sliding lower. "Even when your mind resists, this," two fingers pushed deeper, curling, "remembers who it belongs to." He bit your inner thigh, leaving a mark, then returned to you, focused and intent.
"Say my name when you come."
The orgasm hit, sudden and overwhelming.
You cried out his name, hips bucking against his mouth as you broke apart. Damian drank you in, licking through your climax, not missing a drop.
When you finally stilled, trembling, he crawled up your body, kissing every inch of skin. He hovered above you, eyes dark. "See?" he whispered. "You chose me even now." His lips brushed yours.
"You came apart calling my name," he breathed against your lips, his chest pressed warm against yours. His hand slid up to cradle the back of your neck, an anchor, not a restraint.Â
"That's what love sounds like." He kissed you softly, letting you taste yourself on his lips, and closed his eyes. "Stay with me, and I'll give you everything. Every cruel thing I've done in your name, every sin I carry, it will be worth it." His forehead rested against yours. "But leave me, and I'll follow.â
âLearn this if you learn nothing else, hayati: love is not freedom. Love is knowing when to obey the person who would burn the world before letting it touch you. â
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Im so sorry I don't want to sound impatient but did you finish pt 2 of compliance or no? Ive been checking you're account almost everyday for it đđ
I am a terrible smut writer.
Pt. 2 has gone through like three different drafts lol and Iâm unhappy with it
But it is in the works! Idk when Iâll release it, hoping this final draft makes me feel like Iâm not clawing my eyes out when I read it!
A/N: Ugh, I don't feel 27. As a little May 13th birthday treat, I'm releasing some birthday-themed one-shots (All gn x reader in case anyone is confused and decides to give me death threats again LMAO)
Full series out so far:
Birthday Bat(Batfam x Platonic!GN!Reader)
Tactical Cake (Leon Kennedy x GN!Reader)
You got the idea at exactly two in the morning, which should have been everyoneâs first warning.
By breakfast, you had already printed the reservation confirmation, highlighted the time in radioactive yellow, and marched into the mess hall with the kind of bright-eyed determination that made trained soldiers instinctively look for exits. Price noticed first, because Price noticed everything, even the emotional weather of a room before the storm had fully put its boots on. He was standing by the coffee urn with a mug in hand, cap pulled low, beard still slightly damp from the shower, and when his eyes landed on the paper in your hand, his expression shifted by a fraction. Not fear. Captain John Price did not fear many things. But there was a definite calculation there, a small internal ledger opening in his head and immediately trying to determine how expensive, dangerous, or humiliating this was about to become. Gaz sat at the nearest table with one hand around his tea and the other scrolling through his phone, while Soap was halfway through building an architectural disaster out of toast, eggs, and whatever sauce he had found in the kitchen. Ghost stood by the wall because, of course, he did, black hoodie pulled over broad shoulders, mask in place, watching the room with the calm menace of a gargoyle assigned to breakfast duty.
You slapped the paper down on the table.
Soapâs toast collapsed.
Gaz looked up. âThat sounded official.â
âIt is,â you said. âBirthday orders.â
Price took one slow sip of coffee. âBirthday orders?â
âYes.â
âWeâre doing those now?â
âWe are today.â
Soap leaned over the paper, eyes lighting up before he had even read all of it. âResident Evil escape room?â
Ghostâs head turned.
Gazâs eyebrows climbed. âYou booked us an escape room?â
âI booked us a Resident Evil themed escape room,â you corrected, tapping the confirmation with one finger. âFor my birthday. Two hours. Full immersion. Puzzle-based. Horror elements. Actors. Fog. Lab sets. Raccoon City vibes. Leon Kennedy. Love of my life. There may be zombies.â
Price closed his eyes briefly in the way a man might when informed that a goat had been elected to Parliament. âThere may be zombies.â
âIt says infected personnel on the website, but we all know what that means.â
Soap grinned at you, bright and dangerous. âYou wee menace.â
âThank you.â
âThat was not a compliment.â
âIt felt like one.â
Gaz picked up the paper and scanned it, his mouth twitching. âIt says here no weapons, no excessive force against actors, no breaking props, and no tackling the infected.â
You looked pointedly around the table. âWhich is why weâre having this briefing now.â
Ghost said, âNo.â
âYou donât even know what Iâm asking.â
âNo.â
âYou have to come.â
âNo, I donât.â
âItâs my birthday.â
Silence settled with the sudden weight of a trapdoor opening under all of them.
Soap made a soft, delighted noise. âThatâs dirty.â
Gaz looked between you and Ghost like he was watching someone prod a bear with a party horn. Priceâs gaze dipped to his coffee, but not fast enough to hide the faint curve at the corner of his mouth. Ghost stared at you from across the room, unreadable except for the long, glacial pause that followed. Somewhere in that hush, you remembered the last time you tried to mark an occasion, your infamous attempt to make cupcakes on base, the fire alarm going off, Gaz laughing so hard he nearly dropped his tea, and Ghost silently handing you a fire extinguisher with all the ceremony of a knighthood.Â
You stared back, heart giving one stupid, hopeful little kick behind your ribs. You did not ask for much, not really. You were good at pretending days were just days, at letting milestones pass quietly because it was easier than admitting you wanted anyone to notice. But this year, something in you had rebelled. Something bright, ridiculous, and maybe a little feral had looked at the calendar and said, No. This one is mine.
âItâs my birthday,â you repeated, softer this time, less triumphant and more honest. âI want to go. And I want all of you there.â
Soapâs teasing expression gentled first. Gaz followed. Price looked at you over the rim of his mug, and whatever refusal he had been preparing dissolved somewhere beneath the steady, tired warmth of his eyes. Ghost did not move for a moment. Then he looked away with a small shift of his shoulders, annoyed in a way that sounded suspiciously like surrender.
âFine,â he said.
You smiled before you could stop yourself.
Soap pointed at him. âMarked down in history. Simon Riley defeated by birthday law.â
Ghostâs eyes cut to him. âKeep talking, and youâre bait.â
âYou hear that?â Soap said to you. âHeâs already in character.â
By late afternoon, the four of them had been dragged off base and into civilian clothes with varying degrees of cooperation. Price wore a dark jacket, jeans, and the expression of a father who had agreed to one festive activity and was already prepared to confiscate something. Gaz looked effortlessly normal, which meant he could pass for a regular person until someone noticed how he mapped every exit the second he walked into a room.Â
Soap wore a black T-shirt under an open flannel and looked so excited you feared he might attempt to fistfight a zombie purely for atmosphere. This time, at least, no one tried to wear their shirt inside out like last year's 'stealth mode' attempt, although Soap did check three times just to be sure, and everyone was still banned from costume hats after the infamous sombrero incident. Ghost came in a hoodie, gloves, and his skull mask, because apparently "civilian clothes" meant "same haunting, different fabric."Â
You had dressed comfortably, ready for crawling under fake laser grids, unlocking cabinets, and screaming for theatrical reasons, though you suspected the real entertainment would be watching the most competent men you knew struggle with a puzzle designed by someone named Trevor who probably lived on energy drinks and horror movie lore.
The escape room building sat between a vape shop and a closed bakery, its front windows plastered with biohazard symbols, fake warning tape, and a poster that read: RACCOON CITY NEEDS YOU. The lobby smelled faintly of dust, rubber masks, and popcorn from a machine in the corner. Red lights pulsed along the ceiling in slow, dramatic beats. Somewhere behind the walls, a distant alarm looped, low and mechanical, like a building dreaming of disaster.
Soap breathed in deeply. âThis is brilliant.â
Price glanced at the waiver on the counter. âThis is a lawsuit in fancy lighting.â
Gaz nudged your shoulder. âYouâre enjoying this too much.â
âI havenât even begun enjoying this.â
Ghost stood behind you, looming silently at the display of fake severed hands in a glass case. One of the teenage employees at the counter looked at him, looked at the skull mask, then looked at their clipboard with the weary professionalism of someone who had decided they were not paid enough to ask.
âTeam name?â the employee asked.
Soap opened his mouth.
âNo,â Price said immediately.
âYou donât even know what I was gonna say.â
âI know enough.â
You leaned on the counter. âPut us down as Birthday S.T.A.R.S.â
Gaz made a sound as if he were trying not to laugh.
Soap clutched his chest. âThatâs awful. I love it.â
Ghost muttered, âShouldâve stayed in the car.â
âYou came in my car,â you said.
âShouldâve stayed in the boot.â
The employee gave the rules in a flat, practiced voice, and you listened very carefully, mostly because you could feel the combined impatience of 141 radiating behind you like a tactical furnace. No touching actors. No climbing unless instructed. No forced entry. Clues were hidden, not buried, inside walls. If anyone needed to leave, they could say the safe word, which was âgreen herb.â Soap immediately lost his mind at that and had to turn away, shoulders shaking.Â
"Appropriate," Gaz stage-whispered, "half the team needs healing herbs on a normal day." You added, "Is there a bonus for yelling 'herb' in a Scottish accent?" Ghost looked as though every cell in his body had filed a complaint.
Then the employee opened a heavy black door and gestured into the dark.
âWelcome to the underground lab. You have ninety minutes before the infection reaches the surface.â
You stepped in first.
The door shut behind you with a final, theatrical thunk.
For a second, the room was nearly black. Then, the emergency lights flickered on overhead, bathing everything in red. You stood in what looked like a ruined security office, all cracked monitors, overturned chairs, fake blood dragged across the tiled floor in long, glossy streaks. A corpse in a lab coat slumped over the desk, one hand outstretched toward a locked metal case. Papers littered the room, covered in patient logs, chemical codes, and warnings about viral exposure. Somewhere beyond the walls, something groaned.
You felt ridiculous joy rise in your chest.
âThis is so cool,â you whispered.
Price stepped past you, eyes moving automatically across the room. âDonât touch anything yet.â
âItâs an escape room, Price. Touching things is the point.â
âOrganized touching.â
Gaz laughed under his breath and picked up a clipboard from the floor. âPatient list. There are numbers circled.â
Soap crouched by the fake corpse. âOur dead friendâs got a keycard under his hand.â
âAsk permission,â you said solemnly.
Soap looked at the corpse. âSorry, mate.â He lifted the rubber hand, took the keycard, and immediately the corpse jerked upright with a recorded scream.
Soap screamed too.
Not a little. Not politely. A full, startled, soul-ejected yelp that echoed off the walls and made Gaz double over laughing. Price turned sharply, hand half-raised before remembering the no-weapons rule. Ghost did not flinch, but his eyes snapped to Soap with such murderous dryness you nearly folded in half.
Soap pressed a hand to his chest. âThat was cheap.â
âYou apologized to a mannequin,â Ghost said.
âIt had presence.â
You laughed so hard your eyes watered, and that more than anything loosened the room. Gaz was still grinning as he matched the circled patient numbers to a keypad on the wall. Price sorted through lab notes with a gruff efficiency that made even fake paperwork feel like part of a classified operation. Ghost found a UV flashlight taped under the desk within thirty seconds, because of course he did, and when invisible ink appeared across the wall spelling out DONâT TRUST WESKER, you gasped loudly enough for Soap to whip around.
âWhat?â he demanded.
âNothing,â you said. âIâm just emotionally fulfilled.â
âYouâre a nerd.â
âItâs my birthday. Iâm a decorated nerd.â
Gaz entered the first code. A cabinet popped open with a hiss, revealing three colored vials, a laminated map of the facility, and a plastic pistol-shaped scanner that the employee had explained was used to identify infected samples. Soap grabbed it instantly.
âNo shooting actors,â Price warned.
âItâs a scanner.â
âI know what I said.â
The next room was a laboratory choked with fog. Glass tubes glowed sickly green along the walls. A fake containment chamber stood cracked open in the center, its door clawed from the inside. The air smelled like machine fog and cold metal, and something about the lighting made everyoneâs faces look sharper, stranger, half-human under the red emergency wash. Your hand brushed Gazâs sleeve as you moved in, and he glanced down, not quite taking your hand but staying close enough that the offer was there. It was the kind of quiet care that never announced itself. You felt it anyway.
A speaker crackled overhead. âAttention. Viral breach detected. All personnel proceed to decontamination.â
Soap looked delighted. âAye, see, I could work here.â
âNo, you couldnât,â Gaz said.
âIâd be great in a zombie outbreak.â
âYouâd get bitten trying to pet something.â
âIt might be lonely.â
Ghost moved toward a locked medical fridge. âFocus.â
âBossy for a man who didnât want to come,â you said.
Ghost did not look at you, but his voice came back low. âStill here.â
The words landed softer than they should have. Still here. With him, everything gentle arrived disguised as a blunt object. For a second, the realization pulsed through you: these small acts, so easily dismissed, meant everything. You smiled to yourself, a little helpless, a little grateful, and turned back to the puzzles before your heart could do anything embarrassing, holding tight to the warmth of being together.
The lab puzzle required mixing the colored vials according to a formula hidden across three different stations. Price became alarmed about it. He lined the vials up with military precision, assigned Gaz to the map, told Soap not to touch anything unless supervised, and somehow made a fake antidote puzzle feel like defusing an actual biochemical weapon. You watched him argue with a laminated instruction card and felt a warmth spread behind your ribs.
âYou know we donât actually die if we mess it up, right?â you asked.
Price gave you a look. âThatâs no excuse for poor procedure.â
Soap whispered, âHeâs having fun.â
âI heard that.â
âYou were meant to.â
Then the lights cut out.
A siren wailed. Red strobes burst through the dark. Something slammed against the glass of the cracked containment chamber. You jumped back into Gaz, who caught you by the shoulders automatically, steady and warm. A figure in torn lab scrubs lurched out of a hidden door with a guttural moan, face painted gray, contacts gleaming under the strobe.
You shrieked. Not because you were truly frightened, but because it felt right, and because joy sometimes needed a dramatic exit. Soap shouted something Scottish and delighted. Price stepped in front of you on instinct before stopping himself. Ghost moved faster than anyone, one gloved hand catching the back of Soapâs shirt before Soap could square up like the infected actor had personally insulted his mother.
âNo tackling,â Ghost said.
âI wasnât gonna.â
âYou shifted your weight.â
âI shift my weight all the time.â
âYou were gonna tackle the zombie,â Gaz said, still holding your shoulders and laughing.
The actor groaned magnificently and pointed toward a keypad before staggering back into the dark.
You clapped a hand over your mouth. âThey gave us a clue.â
Soap stared after them. âThat zombieâs a team player.â
The clue got you into decontamination, which was really a narrow hallway with flashing lights, hanging plastic strips, and a voiceover announcing that all contaminated subjects would be incinerated. You had to solve a pressure-plate sequence to cross safely. Soap kept trying to rush it. Price kept catching him by the collar. Gaz figured out the rhythm. Ghost, infuriatingly, memorized the entire sequence after watching it once and crossed with the smooth, silent confidence of a man who had never once been humbled by recreational puzzles.
You stood at the start of the plates, eyeing the flashing pattern. âI hate that heâs good at this.â
Ghost turned from the other side. âYou wanted me here.â
âI wanted you mediocre here.â
âDisappointing you already.â
âNo,â you said, and the word came out too honest, too quick. His eyes held yours through the red-lit haze. âNot that.â
The hallway seemed to quiet around you for half a heartbeat, though the alarms were still blaring and Soap was muttering numbers under his breath. Ghost said nothing, but something in his posture changed, a tiny easing at the edges. You crossed the plates carefully, Gaz counting for you, Price watching your feet, Soap cheering in whispers as if volume might set off the fake incinerator.
When you reached the other side, Ghostâs hand hovered near your elbow, not touching unless needed.
âYouâre fine,â he said.
âI know.â
âGood.â
The final room was the directorâs office, all dark wood, flickering monitors, and ominous corporate villain dĂŠcor. A huge Umbrella-style logo dominated the wall, altered just enough to avoid copyright, which made it funnier. There was a locked briefcase on the desk, a chessboard with missing pieces, a bookshelf with hidden switches, and a red-glowing countdown timer above the exit door. Twenty-two minutes left.
For a while, the five of you moved like a strange little machine. Gaz cracked the monitor password using employee birthdays from a file. Soap found a chess piece inside a fake plant and crowed like he had discovered buried treasure. Price decoded a memo by holding it over a lamp, and when a hidden message appeared, he looked personally vindicated. Ghost discovered that the bookshelf switches corresponded to the order of infection stages listed in the lab notes. You found the last key taped beneath the directorâs nameplate and unlocked the briefcase to reveal a final vial labeled CURE and a card that read: Only one team member can carry the cure to extraction. Choose wisely.
Soap immediately pointed at you. âBirthday immunity.â
Gaz nodded. âBirthday immunity.â
Price took the vial and placed it in your hand with ceremonial seriousness. âDonât drop it.â
âItâs plastic.â
âStill.â
Ghost looked at the timer. âMove.â
The exit required one last code, hidden in a recorded message that played from the office phone. The message was distorted, layered with static, and accompanied by a dramatic voice speaking about betrayal, containment, and the collapse of Raccoon City. You all leaned in around the desk, trying to catch the numbers beneath the noise.
âSeven,â Gaz said.
âTwo,â Price added.
âWas that a nine?â you asked.
âFive,â Ghost said.
Soap frowned. âI heard sandwich.â
âYou heard sandwich?â Gaz asked.
âIâm hungry.â
âYou had cake in the car.â
âThat was pre-outbreak cake.â
The timer hit three minutes.
You punched in 7259. Red light. Wrong.
âDamn,â you whispered.
Priceâs jaw tightened. Gaz replayed the message. Soap finally went quiet, focus sharpening beneath the humor. Ghost stood close behind you, his presence steady at your back. The voice crackled again.
âSeven,â Gaz said.
âTwo,â Price said.
âNot five,â Ghost corrected. âFight.â
You blinked. âResident Evil puzzle logic. Boss fight. Itâs not a number. Itâs a word.â
Soap snapped his fingers. âTyrant.â
You looked at the keypad, then the letters beneath the numbers. TYRANT. 897268.
Green light.
The exit door unlocked with a heavy clunk just as the timer dipped under sixty seconds. Soap whooped. Gaz grabbed your sleeve and pulled you through the door with the others behind you. Fog spilled after you into the lobby as if the room itself had exhaled defeat.
At the end, Leon Kennedyâs voice crackled from a digital frame at the end of the hallway, a spotlight shining directly on the frame.
Leon congratulated the group. Then he did a backflip.
âHeâs so dreamy,â you sighed.
Gaz and Soap scoffed. âHeâs fake.â
You turned to them, eyes narrowed in defense of your beautiful blonde man.
âLeon is a tactical genius. And hot. And biceps.â
The employee behind the counter clapped politely, dead-eyed from too many bachelor parties and corporate team-building groups.
âCongratulations. You saved the city.â
Soap threw both arms up. âNever doubted us.â
âYou screamed at a mannequin,â Gaz said.
âIt screamed first.â
Price signed the completion board with your team name while pretending not to care about your finishing time. Ghost lingered near the wall again, but when the employee offered to take a team photo in front of the biohazard backdrop, he did not leave. He stood behind you, huge and still, while Soap threw an arm around your shoulders and Gaz leaned in on your other side. Price stood close enough that his shoulder brushed yours. The paper crown Soap had bought from the lobby gift shelf sat crooked on your head, black with a little red biohazard symbol in the center, and you looked at the camera with flushed cheeks and a grin you could not seem to tame.
Outside, night had settled over the parking lot, cool and deep, the pavement shining faintly under the streetlamps. The world felt strangely soft after all that red light and fog, ordinary in a way that seemed almost magical. Soap was still arguing that he would have survived the outbreak. Gaz was listing every reason he would not. Price walked beside you with his hands in his jacket pockets, quiet but close. Ghost trailed just behind, the sound of his boots steady in the dark.
You slowed near the car, looking back at the glowing windows of the escape room. âThank you for coming.â
You shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. âI know it was ridiculous.â
âIt was,â Price said.
You laughed under your breath. âThanks.â
His eyes warmed. âWas also worth it.â
Soap bumped your shoulder gently. âBest outbreak Iâve ever been dragged into.â
âYou loved it.â
âAye. Donât let it go to your head.â
Gaz held up the photo strip the employee had printed, the five of you caught in a ridiculous little frame of smoke and fake biohazard tape. âWeâre keeping this.â
Ghost reached for it.
Gaz moved it out of reach. âNo.â
âDestroy it.â
âAbsolutely not.â
âItâs evidence.â
âItâs memories.â
Soap leaned in. âSame thing, LT.â
You looked at Ghost, smiling. âYou had fun.â
âNo.â
âYou made the zombie clue-giver nervous.â
âThat was not fun.â
âYou solved half the room.â
âThat was efficiency.â
âYou came because it was my birthday.â
Ghost went still.
The others quieted with the kind of subtle grace they sometimes had when something mattered. The parking lot lights hummed above you. Somewhere down the road, a car passed, its headlights sweeping over the curb and gone.
Ghost looked at you for a long moment, then said, âYou asked.â
It was not much. It was everything. Your birthday had been fake blood, cheap fog, a plastic cure vial, Soap screaming at a corpse, Gaz laughing with his whole face, Price pretending he wasn't deeply invested in the puzzle procedure, and Ghost standing in a themed escape room because you wanted him there. It should have been silly. It was silly. But under it, threaded through every ridiculous second, was the thing you had been too afraid to ask for directly.
They showed up.
You looked down at the little photo strip in Gazâs hand, at all of you crammed together in red light, alive and absurd and yours in the only way people like them could be.
Let me keep this, you thought. Just this. Just them.
Then Soap ruined the moment by saying, âNext year, weâre doing haunted laser tag.â
Price immediately said, âNo.â
Gaz said, âMaybe.â
Ghost said, âAbsolutely not.â
You grinned, birthday crown slipping lower over your forehead. âItâs my birthday next year too.â
Ghost stared at you.
Soap started laughing.
And under the cool hush of the parking lot, with fake city-saving behind you and real warmth walking beside you, you let yourself believe, just for tonight, that some wishes did not need candles to come true.
A/N: Happy Birthday to anyone celebrating their birthday and reading this!!! Hope you have a great birthday!
Edit 1: Apparently, the photo I found from Google was AI, so I switched it!
A/N: Ugh, I don't feel 27. As a little birthday treat, I'm releasing some birthday-themed one-shots (All gn x reader in case anyone is confused and decides to give me death threats again LMAO)
Full series out so far:
Birthday Bat(Batfam x Platonic!GN!Reader)
Tactical Cake (Leon Kennedy x GN!Reader)
Enjoy, Reader
You knew Leon Kennedy was planning something.
The first sign that Leon Kennedy was planning something was that he was terrible at not planning something.
Not at the actual planning. Leon could map exits, clock weapons, read a room, and improvise a survival strategy out of duct tape, bad lighting, and spite. But hiding affection? That was where the man became suspiciously wooden, like someone had replaced his blood with government-grade panic.
All day, you noticed that he had been strange.
Not distant per se, you would catch it immediately if it were that. But Leonâs distance was a different creature entirely, colder, quieter, usually born from nightmares he did not want to hand you. This was not distance. This was Leon glancing at his phone too often, shutting cabinets a little too fast when you walked in, pretending he had not just been staring at the oven with the grave focus of a man defusing a bomb.
Now the apartment was dim except for the gold spill of kitchen light and the rain trembling against the windows. Outside, the city blurred in wet streaks of red brake lights and neon signs. Inside, it smelled like vanilla, melted chocolate, and something faintly burnt.
You stepped out of the bedroom in socks, paused in the hallway, and listened.
Silence.
Then a low, muttered, âNo, no, no. Come on.â
A drawer opened. Something clattered.
Leon sighed.
You leaned against the doorframe. âAre you fighting the kitchen?â
Leon froze.
He stood at the counter in a dark T-shirt and jeans, hair slightly messy, sleeves pushed up his forearms, one hand holding a spatula like evidence. There was flour on his shoulder. A streak of frosting on his wrist. On the counter sat a cake that looked mostly like a cake, though one side had begun a slow emotional collapse.
His blue eyes flicked from you to the cake and back.
âNo,â he said.
You looked at the cake.
He looked at the cake.
The cake slumped another centimeter.
Leonâs jaw tightened. âMaybe.â
Your mouth twitched. âIs this classified?â
âIt was supposed to be a surprise.â
âIt still is.â
âThat thing is not a surprise. That thing is a cry for help.â
You laughed, and his expression softened before he could hide it. That was always the thing with Leon. He tried to carry himself like a locked door, but around you, the hinges kept betraying him.
He set the spatula down and rubbed the back of his neck. âHappy birthday.â
No speech, no performance. Just Leon in your kitchen, flour on his shirt, half-ruined cake on the counter, watching you like your birthday is some fragile mission heâs terrified to mess up.
You stepped closer. âYou baked?â
âI attempted.â
âYou donât cook.â
âI can cook.â
âYou make eggs and call that dinner.â
âTheyâre good eggs.â
âTheyâre government eggs.â
He gave you a look. âWhat does that even mean?â
âEfficient. Sad. Slightly dangerous.â
A huff of laughter escaped him, low and reluctant, and it warmed the kitchen more than the oven had. He turned toward the counter and dragged a hand through his hair, leaving a faint smear of flour near his temple.
âI had a plan,â he said. âDinner, cake, candles. The whole thing.â
âYou made me dinner too?â
His eyes slid toward the sink.
You followed his gaze. There was a pot soaking there. The water had turned orange.
Leon said, very carefully, âDinner has been postponed.â
âDid dinner lose?â
âDinner fought hard.â
You bit your lip, but the laugh came anyway. Leonâs shoulders dropped, the tension in him easing by degrees. He watched you laugh like he was memorizing it, like he had seen too many things fall apart and could not quite believe he had made something brighten instead.
âOkay,â he said, reaching for something behind him. âBackup plan.â
He pulled out a paper bag from your favorite takeout place.
Your eyes widened. âLeon.â
âIâm not proud.â
âYou absolutely should be.â
âI wanted to do it myself.â
âYou did.â You glanced at the cake. âYou made modern art.â
He looked offended. âIt has structural issues. It is not modern art.â
âLeon, itâs leaning.â
âItâs tactical.â
âThe cake is tactical?â
âItâs using cover.â
You laughed again, and this time he smiled fully, quick and crooked and almost boyish, the kind of smile he did not give the world because the world had not earned it. He brought the takeout to the small table by the window, where he had already set two plates, folded napkins, and a little vase with flowers in it. Not roses. Something softer. Wild-looking, pale yellow and white, the kind of flowers that seemed like they belonged in morning light.
There were candles too. Three of them, all slightly different sizes. A small wrapped box sat beside your plate.
You slowed.
Leon noticed. Of course he did. Leon noticed everything. His face shifted, humor quieting into something more careful.
âToo much?â he asked.
You shook your head. âNo. Just⌠you did all this?â
His thumb brushed the edge of the chair before he pulled it out for you. âYou deserve a good birthday.â
The words settled between you, warm and aching.
Leon said things like that with a strange, raw honesty. He didnât dress up affection. He just set it down, plain and bare, and let it breathe. Sometimes it hurt more than poetry ever could.
You sat. He took the chair across from you. For a while, the night was easy, rain against glass, takeout opened between you. Leon tried to act like he hadnât ordered all your favorites, but he had. His knee brushed yours under the table and stayed. Candlelight caught in his hair, softened the sharp line of his cheek, made him look less like a man built by disaster and more like someone whoâd finally found a quiet room after years of alarms.
âYouâre staring,â he said, though he was smiling faintly.
âSo are you.â
âIâm observing.â
âThatâs romantic.â
âI can be romantic.â
âYou called the cake tactical.â
âAnd you liked it.â
âI liked you calling the cake tactical.â
âStill counts.â
You shook your head, smiling as you picked up your drink. âYouâre ridiculous.â
His gaze dipped, then lifted again. Softer. âOnly around you.â
The room went quiet after that, but not uncomfortably. Leon reached across the table and brushed his fingers over yours, not grabbing, not asking for attention too loudly. Just touching. A small anchor. His hand was warm, calloused, familiar. You turned your palm over, and he laced your fingers together.
For all his strength, Leon touched you like tenderness had rules he was still learning. Like he was afraid to bring the rough parts too close. You hated that, how he thought love needed him harmless. But you loved him for every part; the complicated, restless sides as much as the gentle ones. You loved him as he was: tired eyes, dry humor, old grief, stubborn heart. A man who kept surviving and still remembered your favorite food.
After dinner, he stood and retrieved the cake with dramatic seriousness.
It had sunk further on one side.
You pressed your lips together.
âDo not laugh,â he said.
âIâm not.â
âYou are internally laughing.â
âI would never.â
He set the cake down between you. The frosting was uneven, but there were sprinkles scattered over it in an enthusiastic little storm. Across the top, in blue icing, he had written: HAPPY BIRTHDAY.Â
The laughter vanished from your throat.
Leon looked away first. âI know itâs cheesy.â
âItâs not.â
âIt is.â
âLeon.â
He went still at the sound of his name.
You looked at the cake, then at him. âItâs perfect.â
His face barely changed, but you saw it; the small break in his guard, the relief he tried to bury, the way his eyes softened until they were almost too much to look at.
He cleared his throat. âYou havenât tasted it yet.â
âIâm judging emotionally.â
âThatâs dangerous.â
âI live dangerously. Iâm dating you.â
âFair.â
He lit a single candle and turned off the kitchen light, leaving only the tiny flame and the city glow. The candle made a small golden circle over the ruined cake, over Leonâs hands, over the wrapped box, over the flowers bending in their little vase. Outside, thunder rolled somewhere far away, a tired sound, almost gentle.
Leon leaned back in his chair. âMake a wish.â
You looked at him across the candlelight.
There were so many things you could wish for. A year without blood on his clothes. A night where he slept through until morning. A world that stopped asking him to be brave because it could not be bothered to be kind. A future that did not flinch every time his phone rang. You wanted absurd things too, impossible things: slow Sundays, burnt pancakes, matching mugs, Leon laughing without checking the exits first. And even if most of these wishes seemed far away, you still hoped for gentler years ahead, for soft days to come, believing that each small, quiet moment together might be the start of something brighter.
But he was here. He was safe tonight. He had baked you a collapsing cake and written glad you exist in crooked icing.
That was already a wish with a pulse.
You blew out the candle.
Leon watched the smoke curl upward. âWhatâd you wish for?â
âYou know I canât tell you.â
âRight. Birthday law.â
âVery serious.â
âWouldnât want to interfere with the magic.â
âYou fight bioweapons and draw the line at birthday magic?â
âAbsolutely. I have priorities.â
He cut the cake badly. Somehow, impossibly, it tasted good. A little too sweet, a little uneven, but warm with vanilla and effort. Leon looked almost suspicious when you took another bite.
âYou donât have to pretend,â he said.
âIâm not pretending.â
âYouâre eating the structurally compromised part.â
âItâs delicious.â
He took a bite from his own plate. Paused. âHuh.â
âTold you.â
âI may have overreacted.â
âYou called it a cry for help.â
âIt looked worse before.â
âI am fascinated and terrified by that.â
He smiled into his fork.
After the cake, he pushed the wrapped box toward you. âOne more thing.â
The wrapping was simple, dark paper folded neatly, though the tape on the bottom betrayed him. Inside was a small leather keychain embossed with your initials. Attached to it was a silver charm, simple and understated: a tiny shield on one side, and on the back, engraved in small letters, was "come home safe." He glanced at you before you could speak, eyes a little vulnerable. He had spent too long looking at possible gifts, second-guessing everything, until he saw the shield. It wasn't flashy, but he thought of its meaning: a promise, a wish for safety, the smallest measure of protection he could offer when he couldn't always be there himself. The words had taken him longer. He'd wanted something simple, never dramatic, just what he carried in his heart each time you left the apartment: that you would always, somehow, find your way back home to him.
Your fingers stilled.
Leonâs voice was quiet. âI know youâre not the one running into danger every day. But I stillâŚâ He stopped, jaw flexing once. âI still want that for you. Always.â
The kitchen blurred slightly.
He looked down at his hands. âToo dramatic?â
You stood, rounded the table, and wrapped your arms around him. Leon froze for half a breath, then pulled you in close, his face turning into your shoulder. His arms came around you with a careful strength that made something inside you ache.
âNo,â you whispered. âNot too dramatic.â
He held you tighter.
For a while, neither of you moved. Rain kept falling. Candle smoke faded. The city hummed outside, restless and bright. Inside, the apartment stayed warm; takeout containers, cake crumbs, and flowers Leon probably spent twenty minutes choosing with the same grim determination he brought to survival.
You remembered another night, quiet and late, when you'd found yourselves sharing a midnight snack on the kitchen floor after a day that hadnât gone right. Back then, it was leftover pizza and a single birthday candle in a cupcake, both of you laughing too loud and clumsy with tired happiness. That night, heâd told you in a low voice that heâd never imagined birthdays could feel like home. Now, with Leon's arms around you and the city pressed gently against the windows, you realized how many moments like that had stitched themselves into the life you'd built together.
Eventually, he murmured, âIâm sorry the cake collapsed.â
You smiled against his hair. âI love the cake.â
âYou love the idea of the cake.â
âI love the tactical cake.â
His laugh was quiet, tucked into your shoulder. âNever living that down, am I?â
âNot a chance.â
He pulled back just enough to look at you, hands at your waist, his face open in the low light. Still Leon. Still bruised by old ghosts, still carrying too much, but here. Yours. Trying. Soft in the places he trusted you to see.
âHappy birthday,â he said again, and this time his voice was almost a whisper.
You touched the flour still smudged near his temple. âThank you for making it good.â
His eyes flicked over your face, slow and tender. âYou make it easy to want to.â
Later, you ended up on the couch under a blanket, the ruined cake on the coffee table, the takeout half-forgotten, some terrible old movie playing low on the television. Leon sat close enough that your shoulder pressed into his chest, one arm wrapped around you, thumb moving absently over your sleeve. His shirt smelled faintly of clean cotton and something quietly familiar, warmth and comfort lingering beneath the fabric. Every so often, he made a dry comment about the movieâs terrible tactics, and every so often, you told him the tactical cake had no room to judge. He would huff, kiss the top of your head, and pretend not to smile.
Outside, the rain turned the windows silver. Inside, the candles burned low.
And for one night, no alarms. No missions. No monsters in the dark. Just Leonâs heartbeat under your cheek, steady and stubborn. The strange, golden comfort of being loved by someone whoâd seen the worst of the world and still chosen, with flour on his shirt and frosting on his wrist, to make something sweet for you.
A/N: Happy Birthday to anyone celebrating their birthday and reading this!!! Hope you have a great birthday!
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I think once I figure out the link between SE, Aggie, and Blake(âs family) everything will fall into place but right now I canât pinpoint it. Their powers seem to make them cognitohazards in that they can influence peopleâs thoughts & perception by being thought of or by being connected to something, with direct proximity having the most influence. I still think SE is tied to fear and Aggie to safety, but itâs clear that Blake isnât just calmness. Maybe surety/confidence? Ego?Â
Also, surely something happening to Aggie the moment she mentions going somewhere other than the hotel is just a coincidence. Right? :D
-đ anon
P.S. if any of my asks are too spoilery to respond to, feel free to delete them or leave them unanswered! I just like figuring out the lorebuilding and seeing if I'm picking up the correct hints
Oh my god, you're so close, it's a little scary.
I won't tell you which parts are right or wrong, but I will say there's very little you were off on.
Hey! I just wanted to say Iâve been reading night terrors for some time now, and that I genuinely really enjoy reading it! Iâve been searching for a chaptered x reader fanfic with a compelling story and super interesting characters for so long, and Iâm glad I took the time out of my day to read yours.
The way you write is so so good! I love how you write the feeling of dread that makes the reader feel like youâre actually in the story. You genuinely feel what the character is experiencing at that moment and it makes the story feel less like words on a screen, but like itâs actually taking place in real life.
Your writing skills is something that I genuinely admire, and honestly pushes me to want to get better at writing so that I can convey my ideas and emotions in my own writing better.
I really appreciate your work!đ
(Also can you add me to the tag list for night terrors? Iâve been meaning to ask lolđ)
Alright, well, thanks for making me cry today.
I promise you, my writing skills suck! I just stare at it until I find everything wrong with it. Upload it to Tumblr, then stare at it some more LOL. I always feel bad for people who reblogged it before I made like 20 changes!
A/N: My Birthday is tomorrow! May 13th! As a treat, I'm releasing some birthday-themed one-shots (All gn x reader in case anyone is confused and decides to give me death threats again LMAO)
Enjoy, Reader
Full Series Out So Far:
Birthday Bat(Batfam x Platonic!GN!Reader)
Tactical Cake (Leon Kennedy x GN!Reader)
Rain blurred Gotham into silver, tapping at the tall windows of Wayne Manor. The house was too quiet, holding its breath. You stood in the main hall, shoes damp, grocery bag against your hip, tulips in hand, birthday color for a slate-gray sky. You were not a Wayne by birth or blood, but over the past year, you had become part of the manor's strangeness, invited in and adopted despite the rough edges. Tonight, on your birthday, you wondered if you finally belonged.
You stopped under the chandelier and narrowed your eyes.
âHello?â
Nothing.
The manor answered with a wooden creak.
You looked toward the grandfather clock. âIf this is a training exercise, Iâm leaving.â
A whisper came from above. âThey know.â
A lower voice, unmistakably Bruceâs, said, âThey donât.â
Jasonâs voice cut in from somewhere to your left. âTheyâre staring right at you, big guy.â
âI am aware,â Bruce said.
You folded your arms. âBruce, are you behind the clock?â
The grandfather clock opened a few inches. Bruce Wayne stepped out, trying for dignity, like he hadnât just been caught hiding behind antique furniture. Black crepe paper stuck to his shoulder. His face stayed solemn, but his eyes were soft at the edges.
âI was not hiding,â he said.
âYou were inside a clock.â
âTactical positioning.â
Jason snorted, "Bruce, you clock-blocked the birthday surprise."
From the second-floor landing, Dick burst into helpless laughter. âOkay, weâre done. Revealâs dead.â
The lights came on.
âSurprise!â
Confetti popped from both sides of the hall; gold, black, blue, fluttering around you like Gotham was trying out a new mood. A crooked banner dropped from the balcony: HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Underneath, someone had scrawled YOU ARE TOLERABLE AND OURS. " Tolerable" was crossed out and replaced with "wonderful". Someone else had added mostly.
Damian, standing stiffly on the stairs with a wrapped box in both hands, glared at Jason. âI told you not to alter the banner.â
Jason stepped out from behind the dining room door carrying a cake box. âAnd I told you birthdays need honesty.â
Tim emerged from the hall with an enormous iced coffee and two gift bags. His hair looked like he had fought a pillow and lost. âHappy birthday. Your drink has the correct syrup ratio, and the cake is only slightly classified.â
âThe cake is fine,â Jason said.
âThe first cake is not.â
âThe first cake was a coward.â
Alfred appeared behind them with a tray of hot chocolate, calm as candlelight. âHappy birthday, dear. Master Jason was prevented from further culinary heroics.â
Jason looked wounded. âIt was one fire.â
Alfred lifted a brow.
Jason looked away. âTwo fires.â
You laughed before you could stop. Something in your chest eased. The room was too bright, too full, too much. Dick came down the stairs first and pulled you into a hug; warm, easy, smelling like rain and clean laundry.
âHappy birthday,â he murmured into your hair. âYou get princess treatment today. No brooding, no patrol talk, no ominous staring out windows.â
Bruce glanced toward the nearest window.
Dick snapped his fingers. âNo.â
Bruce looked faintly guilty.
Tim handed you the iced coffee with solemn precision. âYour favorite. Also, I made a schedule, but I was told presenting it immediately would be intimidating.â
Jason leaned closer. âIt has a bathroom break at 3:17.â
âSome people disappear during family events and come back with stolen tires,â Tim said.
âThey were evidence.â
âThey were tires.â
Bruce stepped closer and gently lifted a piece of confetti from your hair. His touch was careful, almost hesitant, but his gaze stayed steady on your face.
âYou deserve to be celebrated,â he said.
The words hit harder than you expected. Bruce didnât waste words, not with affection, not with anything that could break. When he said something like that, it felt less like a compliment and more like a promise set in stone.
You swallowed. âYou all did this?â
Dick squeezed your shoulder. âOf course.â
Jason shifted the cake box against his hip. âDonât make it weird.â
âIâm not.â
âYouâve got wet eyes.â
âItâs the confetti.â
âThere is no confetti in your eyes.â
âThen itâs your face.â
Tim nodded. âThat is plausible.â
They herded you into the sitting room, which had been transformed with fairy lights, blankets, snacks, and a low table crowded with everything you liked. Strawberries, popcorn, sour candy, tiny sandwiches, cookies shaped like bats, and a stack of movies labeled in Timâs handwriting: comfort, chaos, emotional damage, birthday-approved, do not let Jason choose unsupervised.
âYou labeled emotional damage?â you asked.
Tim sipped his coffee. âAccuracy matters.â
Jason set the cake down. âThe best movies hurt your feelings and then explode a building.â
âThat is not a genre,â Damian said.
âIt absolutely is.â
Alfred opened the cake box. The cake was lopsided, charming, and covered in small frosting bats of varying emotional stability. Across the top, in uneven red icing, it said: HAPPY BIRTHDAY. YOUâRE FAMILY. Underneath, smaller: unfortunately for you.
Your smile wobbled.
âAlfred wrote family,â Jason said quickly.
Alfredâs brow rose.
Jason sighed. âFine. I helped write family.â
You looked at him. âJason.â
âDonât start.â
âYou wrote family.â
âYeah, well.â He scratched at the back of his neck. âDonât let it go to your head.â
The word sat in frosting, crooked and sharp. Family. In this house, that word was never casual. It carried blood, history, grief, and loyalty with teeth. Being given it felt like someone handing you a lantern in a storm.
Alfred lit a single gold candle in the center of the cake. The flame flickered, small and stubborn, throwing warm light over every face: Dick open and bright, Jason pretending not to watch you, Tim tired and soft-eyed, Damian stiff with importance, Alfred gentle at the edge, Bruce behind them all, quiet and steady.
âMake a wish,â Dick said.
You looked at the candle.
There were things you wanted. For Bruce to sleep. For Jason to forgive himself. For Dick to stop smiling through pain. For Tim to rest before his bones filed a complaint. For Damian to be a child more often than a soldier. For Alfred to be cared for as fiercely as he cared for everyone else. For this room to stay warm. For no one to vanish into the rain tonight.
You realized, as you made each wish, that they had roots inside you, old and tangled. These hopes felt as if they belonged to the person you had become in this house, shaped quietly by love that was rough-edged and half-hidden. It was odd, wanting peace for every person here, even more than anything for yourself. You ached for their burdens to lessen, for their quiet hurts to heal, because somewhere along the way you had learned what it meant to carry their hearts alongside your own. Each wish was a thread binding you closer to this family; maybe that was what belonging finally felt like, wanting to gather everyone into safety, whether you could or not.
But wishes felt fragile. This already felt like one.
âI think I already have a lot,â you said.
Jason groaned. âThat was disgusting.â
Dickâs eyes shone. âThat was adorable.â
âDeeply embarrassing,â Damian said, but his voice had gone quiet.
Bruce gave you one small nod.
You blew out the candle.
Everyone clapped. Dick cheered loudest. Tim snapped a picture right as you laughed. Jason stole frosting from the cake and got his hand smacked by Alfred. Damian slid the candy gargoyle from his slice onto your plate without a word. He knew you liked it.
Presents came after the cake. Dick gave you an oversized sweatshirt with a tiny blue bird stitched near the cuff, âso youâll stop stealing mine,â though you both knew you would not. It was soft and worn, the kind of thing meant for early mornings and comfort, and the bluebird was a quiet reminder that Dick liked to take care of people without making a scene of it. Tim handed you a sleek little keychain that was apparently a flashlight, charger, emergency beacon, and âseveral other things Bruce told me not to explain in front of Alfred.â It fit perfectly with Timâs talent for preparedness; his gifts were always layered with hidden thought, as if he wanted you to know he was looking out for you even when he could not be there. Jason gave you a leather-bound recipe book with your name embossed on the front, already filled with recipes and handwritten notes like donât let Dick add raisins and Bruce pretends not to like this soup. The book was a little rough around the edges, like Jason himself, offering you a piece of home and proof that he paid attention to what you loved, and sometimes, what you needed most was someone stubborn enough to insist you belonged.
You hugged Jason before he could escape.
He went stiff for half a second, then wrapped one arm around you, heavy and fierce. âHappy birthday, kid.â
âIâm not a kid.â
âEveryoneâs a kid on their birthday.â
Damian reached you then, holding out his wrapped box with both hands. His expression was painfully serious, like he was presenting a royal treaty. âOpen mine now."
You took it carefully. The paper was dark green with tiny silver stars, taped unevenly in one corner and perfectly folded in another. Inside was a velvet pouch, and inside that was a small silver charm: a bat curled protectively around a star.
For a second, the room blurred.
Damian crossed his arms, looking away. âIt is not sentimental.â
âItâs beautiful,â you said softly.
His ears went pink. âObviously. It is meant to indicate that you are under this familyâs protection. Voluntarily. If desired.â
Jason made a tiny choking sound. Damianâs glare snapped to him.
âNot a word, Todd.â
Jason held up one hand. âDidnât say anything.â
âYou were about to.â
âI was about to be moved.â
âYou were about to be insufferable.â
âBoth can be true.â
Bruceâs gift came last: a framed sketch of the small garden beside the library, the quiet place where you sat when the house became too much. The stone bench was drawn beneath the old tree, and on it were tiny details only someone who paid attention would know: your mug, your book, the folded blanket you always dragged outside.
You stared down at it. âYou noticed?â
Bruceâs voice was low. âI notice you.â
The room went very still.
Then Dick, probably sensing that everyone was about three seconds from emotional collapse, clapped his hands. âMovie time before Bruce gets sincere and scares himself.â
Bruce gave him a look.
Dick grinned. âLove you too.â
Later, the party collapsed into blankets and the glow of a movie. Rain whispered at the windows. The fire cracked in the hearth. Dick fell asleep half-sprawled on the couch. Tim dozed with his coffee until Alfred took it away. Jason complained about the movie, then went quiet during the emotional part. Damian leaned against your side, pretending he hadnât picked the seat closest to you. Bruce sat in the armchair, watching the room with that old haunted vigilance, but softer tonight. Less Batman, more father, letting himself have one quiet hour.
You took it all in, the lull of the rain, the warmth pressed close on either side, the easy, tangled comfort of this improbable family. For a rare moment, you felt steady and safe, as if you fit here in a way that needed no explanation. Beneath the quiet and the flickering screen, a calm happiness settled in your chest, a sense of belonging stronger and simpler than words. In this pocket of peace, you let yourself believe you were truly home.
You touched the silver charm at your neck.
Damianâs eyes flicked to it. âIt suits you.â
âThatâs high praise.â
âDo not become smug.â
You smiled and leaned your head back into the couch.
Across the room, Alfred dimmed the lights. The manor settled around you, old wood, rain, warm sugar, shadows held back at the edges. Gotham waited outside, restless and dark. But inside, for one night, the world narrowed to cake crumbs, soft blankets, tired vigilantes, and the strange, golden ache of being loved by people who did not always say it cleanly, but said it anyway. In clocks and cake and emergency keychains. In hand-drawn gardens and frosting letters. In a tiny silver bat wrapped around a star.
As the night quieted, you found yourself hoping this warmth would linger, each gentle tradition carrying forward through storms and long shadows. Maybe there would be other birthdays, other hidden gifts and hesitant kindnesses, more chances to belong in unexpected ways. For now, you tucked the memory close, letting the promise of family be enough to light whatever came next.
A/N: Happy Birthday to anyone celebrating their birthday and reading this!!! Hope you have a great birthday!
oh⌠that anon was⌠i am sorry, no one should receive asks like that, tumblr is weird sometimes and makes fic appear in other tags just because it matches with certain words, so yea, no your fault, um yea, sorry again about that anon
Awhh thank you for thinking of me! đĽşâĽď¸
I really donât think too much about it lol! I just thought it was funny.
I think they probably mistook Night Terrors as an OC fic since itâs so long. (I donât think it could be any other fic because theyâre all unmistakably âx readerâ)
Could Y/N technically be an OC? Eh, who knows. Thereâs no physical description but maybe personality? Blegh
Either way Iâm not that pressed about it đ
Also donât apologize for other peopleâs actions! Cause then we would be here for the rest of our lives! Some people are shitty!!! Let them!!!
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A/N: I couldn't stop thinking about this and wrote it in the past three days.
The apartment was quiet in that ugly, airless way it always was after a fight.Â
It felt like the walls had heard too much and were holding their breath, waiting for the next thing to break. Outside, the city kept moving, with ribbons of light and traffic dragging red and white across the dark. Inside, only the lamp on the side table, the hiss of the radiator, and the silence Jason wore like a punishment he thought he deserved remained.
You sat on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, angled away from him just enough to make the distance obvious. The book was open in your lap. You hadnât turned a page in ages. You didnât look at him. That, more than the argument, was starting to get to Jason. You could see it.
He was still in the clothes heâd come back in. Black shirt stretched across his shoulders, sleeves shoved up his forearms, collar pulled out of shape from where heâd dragged a hand through it. Scarred knuckles. Shadowed jaw. The white streak at his temple catching the lamp light every time he moved. Usually, he wore his size like armor. Like a threat. Like something you couldnât move if you tried.
Tonight, he looked restless.
Heâd already tried twice.
The first time was a rough, muttered, "look, I know I was a dick." Tossed into the room like he hoped youâd catch it and save him from having to say more. You didnât answer. The second try was quieter, lower, a real attempt hiding under irritation. "You gonna keep ignoring me all night?"
Still nothing.
You heard the breath leave him then. Jason recalculating. Jason, who could bulldoze through anything when he was angry, who knew how to fight, threaten, deflect, and charm, was now forced into the humiliating shape of patience. He had been wrong, and you both knew it.
The fight still hung between you in pieces. Sharp pieces. Him saying something cruel because he was angry, because he wanted the last word, because sometimes Jasonâs temper arrived before his better instincts and scorched everything softer on its way through. You telling him to get out of your face. Jason not listening quickly enough. The slam of a cabinet. The scrape in his voice when he realized too late that heâd gone too far.
Now the apartment wore the aftermath like smoke in the air.
You finally turned a page.
It was a small movement, but Jasonâs eyes snapped to your hands like he was starving for any sign you were still there. He hovered near the kitchen for another beat, shoulders tight, then dragged a hand down his mouth and did something that made a hot, incredulous pulse of amusement flicker under your anger.
He crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor.
At first, it wasn't in front of you. He settled beside the couch, close enough that his knee brushed the rug near your foot. Then he shifted, one big hand braced on the cushion, and leaned in until his chin rested on your knee.
The contact was warm through your pants. Heavy. Intentional.
You looked down at him at last.
Jason looked up under dark lashes, blue-green eyes sharp in the low light. Watchful. Careful. Like he was stepping barefoot over broken glass and trying not to bleed. His mouth was set in that stubborn line he wore when he was forcing himself not to get defensive.
For a second, neither of you said anything.
Then you closed the book over one finger to mark the page and asked, very flatly, âAre you a dog now?â
Something in his face changed.
The tension in his mouth bent around the edge of something dangerous and entertained. His eyes flicked over yours, reading, measuring.
Then Jason made a low sound in his throat and barked once.
It wasnât even close to a real bark, which somehow made it worse. Or better. It came out rough with amusement, low from his chest, making the room feel smaller. After, he raised one eyebrow at you like he was offering politeness as a performance, like he knew exactly how ridiculous he looked on the floor at your knee and was choosing to use it anyway.
Look? See? I can behave.
Iâm yours. Notice me.
The laugh that almost rose in you burned off before it could reach your mouth. You were still angry. That mattered. Him trying didnât erase the way heâd spoken to you. Didnât erase the silence youâd wrapped around yourself to keep from saying something just as sharp back.
Still, your fingers twitched on the spine of the book.
Jason noticed. Of course he did. His pupils were already a little blown in the dim room, but they widened at that tiny movement, a dark bloom eating into the color of his eyes. You saw the moment hope touched him, ugly, eager, and badly hidden. He didnât move away from your knee. If anything, he let more of his weight settle there, as if he wanted you to feel the apology in the shape of him.
âCâmon,â he said quietly. âYou gonna make me grovel forever?â
You held his gaze for another second, then set the book aside on the arm of the couch with deliberate care.
Jasonâs eyes dropped to your hand as if it were a weapon.
You just sighed in return.
His breath changed.
It was subtle at first. A deeper pull through his nose, a pause after. You saw the muscles shift in his throat when he swallowed. Jason liked control, even when he pretended not to. Maybe especially then. He liked knowing where the ground was. What you were doing now, giving him just enough to keep him kneeling there and nothing more, was getting under his skin in a way shouting never could.
Good.
He deserved to squirm.
You uncrossed your legs slowly. Jasonâs chin slid with the movement, his mouth parting for half a second before he caught himself. Up close, you could see the tension collecting in him in small, precise places: the flex in his jaw, the pulse in his neck, the way his fingers curled once against the cushion and then flattened. A man built for impact, for speed, for force. All of it going taut under stillness.
When you leaned toward him, he went very quiet.
One of your hands came up first, hovering near his face just long enough to make him track it. Then your fingers slid into his hair.
Jason shut his eyes for the briefest instant.
His hair was thick, softer than his reputation had any right to be. Still a little messy from the fight and from the hands he kept shoving through it when he was frustrated. It curled faintly at the crown when it got too long. Your fingers threaded through the white highlights first, then settled into the darker strands towards the crown of his head, sinking into his scalp, and Jason exhaled.
There.
That reaction.
You felt it move through him all at once. The drag of his inhale, suddenly unsteady. His shoulders dropped and tightened at the same time. The smallest press of his chin into your knee, unable not to lean into the touch that had finally come after all that silence.
His eyes opened again, slower this time, and they were darker than before.
You tightened your hand in his hair and yanked.
Jasonâs head snapped back.
Not violently. Maybe closer to a sting. At least enough to make his face tilt up to you, to strip away the angle heâd been hiding behind and make him look. His breath caught. His pupils blew wide, swallowing almost all the color from his eyes. For one sharp second, every line in his body went still with shock.
Then heat rolled through his expression so fast it was almost brutal.
His lips parted. The tendons in his neck stood out under the skin. One hand came off the cushion and landed against your calf, big and warm and instinctive, but he didnât grip. He just held there, like he knew one wrong move would break whatever wire had just gone live between you.
Your anger hadnât left. It sat under your ribs, heavy and smoldering, feeding the pulse in your throat. But now it had changed temperature. Now it had teeth.
Jason stared up at you like he couldnât decide whether heâd been punished or rewarded.
You could feel the shape of his breathing through your hand, tangled in his hair. Every inhale scraped him on the way in. His lashes flickered once. There was something almost wrecked in the look he gave you, not because he was sorry, though he was, but because he knew exactly what you were doing with the apology heâd brought you, and he was letting you do it anyway.
You want forgiveness, you thought, watching his throat work again. Look at you.
The room pulled tighter around you. The lamp hummed. Somewhere outside, a siren passed and faded. Jasonâs thumb shifted once against your leg, a tiny involuntary drag that said more than any argument. His body knew before his pride did. Maybe that was always the problem. Jason felt everything with his whole body. Anger. Loyalty. Want. Regret. He carried all of it like it had mass.
You leaned closer.
His gaze dropped to your mouth, then jerked back to your eyes. That quick flicker of attention made something sharp and mean curl in your stomach. You kept your hand tight in his hair, holding his head tipped back, and saw another shiver move through him when your knees nearly brushed his chest.
He did not speak.
Smart.
Your other hand came down to the back of the couch for balance as you bent toward him, slow enough to make him live inside every inch of it. Jasonâs breathing was audible now. Quiet, but there. You felt the warmth of it against your wrist. Saw the way his chest expanded under the black fabric, too fast, too deep. The scar near his throat moved when he swallowed.
When your mouth reached his ear, his eyes shut.
Not all the way. Just enough to betray him.
Your lips barely brushed the shell of his ear as you whispered, âYouâre so fucking pathetic.â
The effect was immediate.
Jason inhaled like the words had gone straight into his bloodstream. His fingers flexed against your calf, not enough to hold, just enough to confess. The hand in his hair went tighter by accident, and you felt the tremor that ran through him, small but unmistakable. Want, humiliation, apology, frustration, all of it colliding behind the hard plane of his face until he looked almost feral with the effort of staying still.
His eyes opened again after a second, and there was nothing careful left in them.
No, that wasnât true. There was still care. He was still watching you for the line, for the point where this stopped being punishment and became something else. But it had gone molten now, threaded through with a hunger he wasnât even trying to hide. His pupils were huge. His mouth slightly open. You could feel the heat coming off him in waves.
It would have been easy, right then, to kiss him.
Maybe that was what he thought you were going to do, because his head tilted by a fraction against your hand, not pushing, just offering. A question he didnât dare ask aloud. The old instinct to meet force with force, heat with heat, to let the fight burn into something else entirely.
Instead, you let go of his hair.
Jasonâs breath hitched at the loss.
You stood.
He stayed where he was for one stunned heartbeat, staring up at you from the floor. Hair mussed from your fingers. Face sharpened by the amber light and the flush just starting to rise under his skin. You could see his mind catching up, trying to decide if you were dismissing him or leading him somewhere worse.
Better.
You stepped around him and moved toward the bedroom.
The apartment felt different at your back now. Charged. Close. You heard Jason turn before you looked. You heard the quiet sound of his hand bracing against the floor as he shifted to follow you with his eyes. There was weight in every step you took, not because you hurried, but because you didnât. You knew he was watching the line of your shoulders, the tilt of your head, and the cruelty of walking away after leaving him kneeling there, lit up with nowhere to put it.
Halfway down the short hall, you glanced back.
Jason was still on the floor, but barely. One knee up under him, his body already coiling to rise. His expression had gone intent, almost dangerous. Like a dog hearing the click before the command, every nerve turned toward you. The lamp light caught in his eyes and turned them wild. He looked bigger suddenly, all that force gathering itself.
You leaned one shoulder against the bedroom doorway.
For a moment, you just looked at him. Let the silence stretch. Let him feel it.
Then, with a faint tilt of your head, you said, âCome, boy.â
Jason moved immediately.
The speed of it made your pulse jump.
One second, he was on the floor, the next, he was up, crossing the space between the living room and the hall with that stripped-down purpose he only showed when he stopped pretending to be civilized. His breath was rough now. Shoulders tight. Eyes fixed on you like there was nothing else in the apartment, nothing else in the city, maybe nothing else in the world. The old anger hadnât vanished. It had been taken apart and remade into something hotter, heavier, and meaner at the edges. It made the hair at the back of your neck stand on end.
He reached the doorway just as you stepped back into the bedroom.
For one second, framed in the doorway, Jason looked at you with wrecked disbelief. Like he couldnât quite believe youâd done this to him; taken his apology, put your hand in his hair, called him pathetic, and then beckoned him after you anyway. His chest rose hard beneath his shirt. His hands flexed at his sides. The air between you felt close enough to bite.
Then Jason came in after you and slammed the door.
Took everything in me not to scream at this fic. I have indents from where I bit my left hand to hold a squeal in lmao.
